But it is still more immediately satisfying when I understand at least some of the references. A few years ago I read Good omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, which is full of references to the first and last books of the Bible, as well as the Pendle Witches, all of which I have some knowledge of, so I think I understood most of the jokes. Similarly, on a rather different level, Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid: I have loved both the music of Bach and the art of M.C.Escher since I was a teenager, and although it took a long time, I never felt bored while ploughing through 700+ pages aimed essentially at explaining a single theorem.