I read a Murakami novel in high school, 1Q84. The protagonist is a math teacher who talked about math in a way that I had never seen before. I'd been told I was "good at math" beforehand(for whatever that means, I'm not a fields medalist or anything), but for ~6 months after reading that book, I was _really good_. Like, suddenly I did not have to do any homework in my sr. year calculus class. I loved sitting in class and watching my teacher work through problems, and it seemingly imprinted directly into my brain, because while doing no homework I could still ace the exams while writing with a pen (no erasing and re-do'ing with a pencil). All because of the way this fictional teacher from 1Q84 talked about math.

Has anyone else had an experience like that? (With math or other things?)