There are tons of book recommendation lists all over the place, but I can't seem to find anything quite like GEB. I read in bed and don't really want a book about math, a programming language, or development methodology—I love such books, but they're generally designed to be followed along with like a textbook.
I don't want something extremely challenging intellectually—what I want is something intellectually expanding that can be read in huge chunks (similar to fiction, although I'm generally not into fiction). That's exactly what I loved GEB for.
Have you read any other Hofstadter books? I know he says that subsequent books of his express the themes of GEB even better than GEB itself did, but I'm afraid they might end up being repetitive.
I've sought out books about the subjects I love: decidability, completeness, theory of computation, statistics, automata theory, language/compiler design, etc. but they've all been too rigorous to read before sleep. For those of you that loved GEB, what else do you love?
(Note: I haven't actually read it, just got to flip through sections for a few minutes. It seems to be a nice mix of Hofstadter's personal stories and ideas, and I liked the writing, so I intend to read it soon.)
An for "similar to fiction, although I'm generally not into fiction" have you looked into narratives of science? They can be written with the fun aspects of historical fiction, but you come out with knowledge about real events. My favorite that comes to mind is "The Measure of All Things" about the history of the meter: http://www.amazon.com/Measure-All-Things-Seven-Year-Transfor...