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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24113.Godel_Escher_Bach_An_Eternal_Golden_Braid?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1167520215m/24113.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24113.Godel_Escher_Bach_An_Eternal_Golden_Braid?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13577.Douglas_R_Hofstadter">Douglas R. Hofstadter</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19032603?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>Well, this is not really my sort of thing at all, or at least, not at all the sort of thing I usually read. I more or less stumbled upon it by accident. But then again, maybe it is my sort of thing after all as I have been trying to be more diverse in what I read and sometimes enjoy the infuriating (I'm sure this is due to some combination of my education and my upbringing by a smartass engineer). <br/> <br/>So here are some things I think I can say about this book: <br/> <br/>It's dense with connections among various disciplines and kinds of ideas. There's a lot of math--set theory and number theory, in particular--and musings on artificial intelligence, but ideas about molecular biology, musical forms, Zen Buddhism, cognition and art all appear in rather surprising contexts and become part of the author's arguments about how things are understood on different levels. And as an important theme in the book is the notion of self-reference, all of these connections are important not only as examples (though they are good examples) but as connections. I think. <br/> <br/>I have always liked maddening thought processes like the Epimenides sentence ("this statement is false") and they play a huge role in this book. Hofstadter acknowledges what he calls undecidability but goes on to try to make sense of it in a rational way.. very interesting, and quite different from what I do with it. <br/> <br/>I really did think it's very funny, but it's also pretty heavy (in more senses than one; lugging this thing around on the train wasn't easy!) and the math is serious, like, actual math stuff. I got more of it than I expected to, but not all of it. Similarly, knowing music theory would be a huge help in understanding this. <br/> <br/>The Escher illustrations were... actually useful. Not something I thought I'd ever say about Escher (whom I do find interesting). <br/> <br/>I have learned through his arguments against holism that I am something of a holist. Heh. Sometimes that is the best way to find out what I think anyway... <br/> <br/>And better reviews have critiqued other reviews of this book for not providing much information about it. This one certainly doesn't, so perhaps I will stop while I am still on a self-referential note. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/867586?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>