This book is what finally demystified category theory for me.

But as a fair warning it's role is as a synthesizing text for first-year PhD students in pure mathematics. The author's goal is essentially to prepare students to study algebraic geometry, which is one of the most obscure areas of contemporary mathematics research. That doesn't make it any less enjoyable of a book, and it has a lot of topics that are mostly unrelated to algebraic geometry. The point is it's not an easy book by HN standards.

While I know what you're getting at, I think of it as pretty accessible. It assumes a little familiarity with terminology, but since the goal is to use CT as a tool to "see" the structure of various mathematical objects it doesn't demand a whole lot of the reader in terms of background knowledge.

I suppose I should have begun by stating that CT is a new lens on the world and any reader interested in understanding it needs to have the, typically mathematics-derived, patience to really slow down and re-evaluate the way they view some friendly concepts. But I think even with that the "Socratic" rhetoric employed is helpful.

So, I totally agree but even if it's a bit off a waterfall it's not one that I feel too bad about encouraging people to jump off of.

> it's not one that I feel too bad about encouraging people to jump off of

I agree :)

Here's a curated list of Haskell-related books from Rein Henrichs: http://reinh.com/notes/posts/2014-07-25-recommended-reading-...

I've seen "Conceptual Mathematics" recommended by several people for learning Category Theory.

I'm reading that right now. It's a very gentle introduction, and I do recommend it. I looked at some other books but they were very dense with notation that I hadn't seen since college. Conceptual Mathematics doesn't really presume any prior knowledge, so even if it's a little slow in some parts, it's helping me get back up to speed.

I was quite possibly one of them! I recommend Conceptual Mathematics at every opportunity. It's a wonderful first CT book. Aluffi is a bit more ambitious in scope—you leave with a broader understanding of abstract algebra at large as interpreted through CT when useful.