That's a bit patronizing ... disclaimer - the book is sitting on my shelf, but I haven't got round to reading it.

You should totally read it! It's a good read. It made me realise a math book could be written in that way and actually be "rigorous".

For me, at 17 when I read it, math was just a bunch of symbols and exercises. It introduced me to logic and reasoning, made me think about the world differently.

It's like the real red pill in the matrix that's not just something you swallow. You think about it, and you start wondering what else you think you knew about math and the world can be challenged.

It made me a braver man. In that sense, it did change my life.

Also, mentions of genius is not unwarranted when you think about the 3 names mentioned: Godel, Escher, Bach. The book ties things back to how these three people thought about the world, and how their art and thinking can be tied into math.

I think if your mind isn't changed after reading about these figures, then you haven't really gotten it.

Hofstadter isn't necessarily the main attraction here. He created a framework (ie the structure of the book) where these subjects can be reasoned about.

Not to mention Lewis Carroll!

Admittedly, I read it in formative years, but until I read GEB, I didn't really grok what "genius" meant. Understanding strange loops in context of great thinkers who expressed it, and seeing strange loops as the nature of consciousness, and wondering how it could be expressed in software... blew my mind, in several senses of the phrase.

It's not patronizing, it's honest. Read the book, and you'll agree with me. (And it's hardly the only book that gets this credit - something like Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", or Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy, or any number of other books will fundamentally change how you think.)