Gödel, Escher, Bach. Hofstader’s writing is quirky and there is certainly a lot of it, so I didn’t get more than 20 pages in on my first attempt. Perhaps needless to say, I’m very glad I came back and finished it. GEB’s vision is overpowering; these days, I have the idea that the only way Hofstader could approach that vision was to attack it from many different directions, which explains the book’s length and discursiveness. If you haven’t read GEB, or have tried it and gotten bogged down, I heartily recommend giving it another shot.
Gödel, Escher, Bach. Hofstader’s writing is quirky and there is certainly a lot of it, so I didn’t get more than 20 pages in on my first attempt. Perhaps needless to say, I’m very glad I came back and finished it. GEB’s vision is overpowering; these days, I have the idea that the only way Hofstader could approach that vision was to attack it from many different directions, which explains the book’s length and discursiveness. If you haven’t read GEB, or have tried it and gotten bogged down, I heartily recommend giving it another shot.