Surfaces and Essences Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking

Longlisted for the 2014 PEN / E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

Science
“ Surfaces and Essences warrants a place alongside Gödel, Escher, Bach and major recent treatments of human cognition. Analogy is not the endpoint of understanding, but its indispensable beginning."

Nature
“Lucid and, page for page, a delight to read.... [ Surfaces and Essences contains] gems of insight."

Wall Street Journal
"Clear, lively, and personal."

Globe and Mail (Canada)
“Knowing what makes a duck a bird and what makes a plane not a bird may not seem like very profound mental feats—but Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander see such cognitive connections as part of an extraordinarily profound process.... Be prepared to become hyper-conscious of the myriad of analogies one makes every moment of every day.... The end result is a book that is ambitious and provocative."

Booklist , starred review
“A revelatory foray into the dynamics of the mind."

Library Journal
“Like Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning Godel, Escher, Bach , this work executes, from a very complex thesis, an understanding by general readers while also appealing to specialists in philosophy of mind and cognitive science."