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Summary: changed my life (or at least the way I look at things)
Review: In some ways, Hofstadter's intelligence is overwhelming! How could anyone know so much about so many subjects -- and tie them all together? But to use humor and irony and parables to illustrate the concepts was the real genius. Reading GEB made me look at everything differently. His discussion of how DNA works made me see implications everywhere. I've read the whole book twice, and know I could continue to get more by reading it 10 more times. However, I made it a point to read books by all the other authors he cites in GEB -- which led me to a long string of related topics that I've thoroughly enjoyed. There is only one book that I can say had a lifelong impact on the way I look at things -- GEB.
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Summary: Great...and a little dated
Review: This is a fantastic book, but how disappointing that the science in the '99 edition was not updated! I think that the brain science especially should have been updated, given the new understandings of how the brain "re-wires" itself as it learns and remembers. This certainly bears on any discussion of hardware vs. software in our minds, doesn't it? Hofstadter's arguments for not changing a word in the re-printing seem pretty tenuous in this regard.
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Summary: BRILLIANT!
Review: A friend gave me this book five years ago, and I have read it several times since. My favorite!!!
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Summary: Some more comments that I failed to mention
Review: I have read this book twice in my lifetime. The first time, I found it very hard to keep interest in the book towards the end, especially all of the analysis of the human mind and DNA. But I suppose that's excusable because I was pretty young and I lacked the knowlegde, concentration, and stamina to fully comprehend it. I was extremely fortunate to have bought this book for 50 cents! I found it at a book sale at my local library, and, but for a musty smell and the horoscope section of an Egyptian newpaper wedged between the pages, it was as good as if I had boughten it new.But on with this review. I read this book for class. It wasn't a college math class, but, surprise, an 11th grade English class. We weren't assigned to read this particular book, but any non-fiction book, and periodically write entries for these ridiculous "Independent Reading Journals"...the type of thing that teachers like to force on their unsuspecting students. I read this book a second time to be a smart-aleck and confuse my teacher, if you want to know part of the truth. The other part of the truth is that I genuinely wanted to read it again. But it gave me a sense of satisfaction when, at the end of the class period, while my classmates would hand in 3-line summaries, I would produce an increasingly large and detailed analysis on every single detail presented by Dr. Hofstadter (I'm assuming Dr.) himself. Many times my teacher would say, "But you write so MUCH on it...I suppose it really isn't a book that you can sum up.." with growing dread. My friends would scoff at me, telling me I would never meet the page requirement in time(the writing was slow-going!). But I persisted, and in the end I was crushed when it was time to give my private oral report to the teacher and the first thing she said was, "This book sounds so interesting! I'm thinking of reading it myself." Curses, foiled again. I indubitably urge you to read this book, or at least try! If you can, find it on sale at the library. When you finish, you will be surprised at how differently you approach things. This may sound weird, but "Godel, Escher, Bach" actually makes you more intelligent. Another note: this book is a way to be easily entertained. Whenever I'm bored now, I think about the sublime paradox, "The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence is false." Plus, I love the chapter on the art of Renee Margritte (I hope I spelled that right.) Everybody I showed it to thought it was trippy! And I mean that in a good way.
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Summary: the only non-fiction I've read that is truly a work of art
Review: Interesting and imaginative - it made me like math
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Summary: A wonderful IQ test
Review: GEB is a wonderful IQ test: If you read half of it, then gave up, your IQ is >120. If you read all of it, your IQ is >140. If you read all of it, and understood all of it, your IQ is >160. If you wrote it, your IQ is >180.
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Summary: Comment
Review: You show this book as out of print here, but elsewhere, you indicate that a 20-year anniversary edition comes out in January 1999. I just thought people who want to purchase it should know this...
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Summary: Probably the best book on nonfiction I have come across.
Review: Hofstadter brings three of my heroes Godel, Escher and Bach together and has become my hero number four.
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Summary: A Treasure Trove of Insight and Ideas
Review: This is the most delightful bit of nonfiction that I have ever read. This is really two books, as each chapter is divided into two parts: a dialogue "In the spirit of Lewis Carrol" and an essay that occasionally refers to the dialogue before it. Another thing that makes this book pleasant, and at times even seem innocent, is that any conclusions Hofstadter makes at any point in the book are contradicted later in the book, but in a way that just makes you realize that they weren't conclusions in the first place. An amazing number of technical details are explained clearly and objectively, although Hofstadter has a \n overactive tencency to tie together metaphorically his current subject with anything else he can think of. So while this book is splendidly written, it is far to cross referenced to be informative in any particular field, but entices the mind to venture inspired into many at once.
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Summary: Music, math, Plato's dialogues and art.
Review: This fine work, the first book by Hofstadter, is a marvel. He integrates classical philosophy, AI, set theory, Fermat's last theorem (now proven!), music and musical progressions and M.C. Escher's self-referential style of art into one coherent whole. All I can add is that every copy of this book I have loaned out has never come back!
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