I first bought GEB in the early 80's. At that point, I had only a year in college and I made little headway with the book. Went back to college and ended up d

I first bought GEB in the early 80's. At that point, I had only a year in college and I made little headway with the book. Went back to college and ended up double-majoring in Japanese and Computer Science and took a bunch of math courses. Have now spent something like 30 yrs as a software engineer and, in particular, I've worked with many interesting people including one mathematical logician who taught me about such as Alonzo Church and the history of functional programming languages. So picked up GEB again a couple of years ago and found it much easier going. But then put it down again because most of the ideas, in addition to being very verbosely explained, are now old and there really wasn't a whole lot new there aside from elaborate explanation. I imagine that the book served its purpose in its time although if not Hofstadter, someone else would probably have come along and put together the various ideas.