I've never read "The Adapted Mind" but the first two are exactly my recommendations. GEB in particular was life-altering for me. I read it twice in high school and several times since. Growing up in a small town, it really opened my eyes to a larger world somehow and initiated a real craving for knowledge. Oddly enough, learning 6502 assembly had the same effect at the same age.
Most explanations you hear about phenomena experienced in your life are packed in a kind of "made for popular consumption" language. People say things and pretend that the explanations are sufficient as understanding.
GEB is a book that _tries_ to explain things that we don't have words for. There is no facade of popular packaging. You won't understand it unless you're willing to think about things with an open mind -- things that you would be unable to explain to someone else concisely.
(By 'open mind' I mean _actual_ open mindedness, not the meaning it is normally employed to assert -- that is: "willingness to be manipulated.")
It's a profound and singular book that made a huge impression on my young mind as I'd never encountered anything like it - in fact, I had no idea something like it existed. It might not make such an impact on the modern reader, I don't really know.
Hoftstadter struggles with deep metaphysical questions, which will never have satisfying answers. But there is a unique art to his exploration. The problem is that if you read it when you are young, you think there are answers in the book,when really there are only musings.
