I Am a Strange Loop

The author's key strength is his ability to effectively explain complex topics in layman's terms using analogies. That helps a lot in this book, considering its complex topic - Consciousness. I found myself almost always agreeing with the author's idea about the existence/non-existence of the 'self'. Since I am not well-read on this topic, I will reserve from commenting too much on the topic of the 'self'. Instead, I will say that the author does a decent job of presenting the arguments objectively. And this is quite hard to achieve for a complex philosophical topic while keeping the text light and understandable.
The only minor complaint I have was that towards the end there are some sections - talking about musical tastes and their relation to the idea of self - that I found a bit out of place. I would not hold this against the author as the rest of the book was impressive.
I am thinking now that even though I mostly agree with the ideas in the book, I wonder if I think through the implications of these ideas deeply, I might be blown over by their power. I hope that this book will inspire me to think more deeply.

This is merely a re-hash of Hofstadter's justly famous Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, with some ideas from Le Ton Beau de Marot thrown in but most of the fun stuff taken out; if you've read those, you don't need to read this. If you've only read GEB, then read this instead of Le Ton Beau de Marot unless you have a particular interest in the art/skill of translation.

This isn't a bad book, apart from the constant use of reference to the "dear reader", it's just redundant because of the above and not nearly as much fun as GEB.

Here's what it's about: minds - specifically what they are/where they come from. Hofstadter's thesis is very plausible to me, despite my disagreeing with some specific things he says. It seems like it might be scientifically testable, too. My beef with Hofstadter is that his research does not seem focused on testing what seems to be the crux axiom of his theory. I'm not sure off the top of my head to do it but Hofstadter has had since some time in the 1970s to think of a way...maybe it isn't testable after all, but if it isn't then it's just a waste of time and money.

Also Hofstadter HATES mosquitos because they bite him and I think that he subconsciously believes they have no minds simply because of this!