In the past six months, a lot of blogs have been passing around a meme where bloggers list “books that influenced me the most.” The game’s no fun if you don’t play fair…the books that influence you the most aren’t necessarily your current “favorites”—in fact, I don’t think you’re doing the job right if you don’t have some weird or embarrassing things on there. So, at intervals, I’ll be posting books that changed the way I think about life.
This week: Eyewitness Juniors’ Amazing Snakes.
Amazing Snakes, like everything else published by the geniuses at Eyewitness, featured pages dominated by a stunning central image (of a snake, in this case), surrounded by littler pictures and facts—about how many mice could be killed by a drop of the venom of a cobra, how fast a boomslang could strike, etc.
Published in the late ’80s, the Amazing series came along at just the right time to have a massive, lasting impact on my childhood psyche. I’ll never forget the incredible feeling of running up to an adult, squeaking, “Did you know that the Gaboon Viper has the longest fangs of any snake in the world?!” And hearing the crushing humiliation in their voices as they muttered back: “No…I did not.”
That is how I learned that knowledge is power. And that’s probably why I’m pursuing a graduate degree in the humanities today: to become the most powerful person in the world.
