Amazon.com reviews are an interesting thing. Anyone who gives a book 5 stars is most likely overrating it, anyone who gives a book 1 star is probably trashing it for some nitpicking political reason, and anything in between makes boring reading. This is an unfortunate internet truism: the easiest way to stand out is to be outstandingly obnoxious.

Anyway, if you look at the Amazon page for Godel, Escher, Bach, you’ll see a list of lists that people have included the book on, variously titled “Get a real education, or die trying”, “Wisdom List”, “Ridiculously Complex Reads for Mental Aggravation” and the epic six part series, “So you’d like to… become a dry pondorous intellectual”. Mazin.