I say, if you're going to read Hofstadter, read GEB! It's not really a "commitment" if you're interested in what he's talking about. The dialogs in particular are just brilliant and fun to read.

Otherwise I also recommend his "Metamagical Themas" - a collection of all his essays from Scientific American. Here you can skip around, pick out things that sound interesting, and not have to embark on the ~750page journey that is GEB if you don't want to.

I Am A Strange Loop is good, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as some of his other work.

Commitment?? Who needs commitment? Start reading GEB. If you enjoy it, read on. If not, stop.

This is good advice. I enjoyed approximately the first two thirds of GEB, but got bogged down in the later chapters. A number of chapters can be appreciated independently of the others.

(And if it turns out you don't like Douglas R. Hofstadter, perhaps you will like Egbert B. Gebstadter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egbert_B._Gebstadter)

If you've done stuff with logic and theory of computation before, the opening of GEB is not terribly difficult, and it will pull you through to the next parts. If you haven't, you might consider it a fun introduction to the subjects that you would have to read more slowly.

The upside is definitely worth a few reading struggles. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime books (by which I mean that you don't come across books this great often; I don't mean you should read it once and throw it on the fire).

I encourage you to give it a shot.

I recall reading that Hofstadter said (loosely) GEB was taken more as a collection of neat things, than the coherent thesis about identity.

I would personally recommend reading I Am A Strange Loop, and then GEB if intrigued. This way, you will interpret GEB according to Hofstader's more explicit formulations of his deeper ideas, instead of in the more shallow way GEB can be interpreted, without following the thread about identity.

I think I Am A Strange Loop is classic and cannot say too much about how great Hofstadter is. He gets consciousness. He gets it. And he has good ways of communicating it. One of the most brilliant minds I have read.

Thanks for the opinions. I might give it a shot.

It looks like you are from Seattle? Me too, send me an email, I work in biotech, and it looks like you might sort of also?

I've read all his books except Strange Loop. I skimmed it in the bookstore, but it seemed like more of a rehash of ideas presented more interestingly in his other books. Personally I'd recommend starting with GEB.

I'd say it's a distillation, rather then a rehash, but I see what you mean.