What Books Compare to Godel Escher Bach?

[kiwi-awoo]

Since I read godel escher bach I've been trying to find something that will blow me away in the same way as this book did. By far the most entertaining, enlightening book I've ever read.
Anyone else feel the same way? Can you recommend something comparable?

 

[jackwhirl]

Read it again. Take notes this time. :p

 

[JorisL]

Read a topology book?
It allows for some funny stuff to imagine (go 2n times around to reach the same point, go 2n+1 times around and be somewhere new is an example).

 

[StatGuy2000]

To the OP:

Have you read any of the other books by Douglas Hofstadter? He's written many other books after GEB. For example,

1. Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of language (1997)
2. I am a Strange Loop (2007)

Book #2 seems especially connected, at least from what I've heard, to GEB.

If you're interested in other authors with similarly eclectic interests, why not consider the book Infinity and the Mind, by Rudy Rucker, which deals with a number of similar themes to GED.

 

[micromass]

Why not actually try to study the mathematics of Gödel and the geometries that appear in Escher?

 

[kiwi-awoo]

thanks statguy I'll definitely check those out :)
on studying the maths instead, well I've already got a few extracurricular maths books I'm working on so I need something more readable

 

[jcotterell]

Since I read godel escher bach I've been trying to find something that will blow me away in the same way as this book did. By far the most entertaining, enlightening book I've ever read.
Anyone else feel the same way? Can you recommend something comparable?

I'm still reading it, but the first thing I will do when I'm done is read other critically acclaimed books on consciousness to see how the ideas compare to GEB.
Elizabeth Schechter, Dan Dennet and Peter Godfrey-Smith's books all come to mind.

As far as equivalent books in general:
Pirsig's "Zen and the Art.." and its follow up: "Lila" are the only ones that come to mind. He shows a common thread that links Mathematics, Metaphysics, Philosophy and Perception, as well as Motivation and Education, and in the second book, Ethics and Anthropology.