Jambunathan wrote:
Book seems like an interesting read. For me to go from frame message ->
outer message -> inner message, I think I need to read the whole book
and not just a fragment of it

Just curious, is the book a standard regular or supplementary reading
for courses in US. If yes, courses here could improve a lot. Such
readings will make CS/Mathematics fun, fascinating and mysterious.

The wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Douglas_Hofstadter#Inspirational

discusses the question

This book is commonly considered to have inspired many students to begin careers in computing...