I've been reading 'Rip It Up and Start Again - Postpunk 1978-1984' lately. You can guess the results in what I've been listening to
A lot of this music was more or less familiar to me before (especially the better known bands like Talking Heads and Joy Division), but reading that excellent tome by Simon Reynolds has opened it up to me in a whole new way.
It's music from an age that was incredibly different in many ways, and made with very sensibilities that seem very different to anything you'd find today... to a point where listening to it without an explanation will probably give you very little. If you're a music enthusiast, I would highly recommed Rip It Up.