Ways of Seeing
By John Berger

This small book was a revelation. Berger explains that the value of some pieces of art is based on more than artistic merit; a painting could be significant because it was done at a certain time. But mostly the book is about why images are so important to us. As he writes, "It is seeing which establishes our place in the world; we explain that world with words, but…the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled."