"Drawing On the Power of Resonance In Writing" by David Farland is a quick read.  As I continue my tour through books on writing by other authors, I stumbled across this one.  It makes a pretty good point with several modern examples.  Such as how Fantasy novels tend to resonate on Lord of the Rings.  Pretty much all of Dungeon and Dragons and rooted there.  Avatar has echos of Dances with Wolves.

Everything we do builds off the zeitgeist, so to speak.  This book is a nice look that gives you perspective on it.  If you are aware of it, you can take advantage of it to make your story more relatable and hence more popular.  It's worth checking out... though, for some reason, he admits to having Stephanie Meyer as a student.