I've had that book for over 10 years, but haven't read more than a chapter of it. I should give it another try.

It took me doing a reading group to get through that one. That was more my fault than the book, but GEB is real work, and having a number of people involved definitely helped me stick through the parts where I might have wandered off for brain candy.

These notes may help a little bit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2yys1i/lets_start_...

http://godel-escher-bach.wikia.com/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_...

I think it took me four tries before I finally read it all the way through. Eventually the text on formal systems becomes quite heavy and that's where I stopped in my previous tries... once I got past that hump it was downhill all the way. Highly worth the effort; one of the best books I've ever read.

I'm in the same boat. It certainly isn't easy to digest, light reading, but some of the initial ideas seem very interesting.

It's definitely fantastic, and one of the books that had the greatest influence on my thinking (I read it as a teenager, 20+ years ago).

If you want something less theoretical, more personal, poetic and emotional, his "Le ton beau de Marot" (English, despite the title) is also fabulous. He takes a short poem and translates it a hundred different ways, all the while musing about what "translation" means (literal, conveying the same emotion, using the same metaphors, between cultures...) as well as about thought, language and meaning more generally. And then, while he writes the book, his wife gets a brain tumor and dies, and the book becomes part of his mourning.

Great book. I haven't read his more recent I am a Strang Loop. For people who have read it, is it worth the plunge?

I am a Strange Loop elaborates on the ideas from GEB, while also being more personal (which GEB definitely isn't). Some people I knew thought it was repetitive, less enjoyable, and less artistic than GEB. In some ways I agree with those criticisms. But if you want to know more about how self-reference actually leads to consciousness and more about Hofstadter the person I recommend it.

Yeah, it's much more concrete about his consciousness ideas and definitely got me thinking about a lot of things.

I see this book lauded on HN frequently. Would it be interesting/understandable for someone who doesn't have a CS background but has an interest in CS?

There is very little "hard CS" in the book, though there are references to programming. It's more about formal systems. If you're a CS major you may find these things easier to grasp, since you can draw analogies to finite state automata, recursion, the halting problem, etc. But a CS degree is by no means required to enjoy the book.

This book is very interesting. It is taking me eons to read because of its density, but it is well worth it.