Reddit mentions of A Mathematician's Apology (Canto)

• The Republic, by Plato. As Alfred North Whitehead said, "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." If we had to start civilization again, this would be on my bookshelf.
  
  
• Poetics, by Aristotle. If you read this well, you'll never watch a movie again in the same way.
  
  
• Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. A great life guide.
  
  
• The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, by Issac Newton. Not a book, just an idea. But in my own opinion, if you had to pick one thing that marked the beginning of the modern mind, it would be this. If you're wanting to understand the great ideas of human history, this is surely one of the greatest.
  
  
• A Mathematician's Apology, by G. H. Hardy. If you find the idea of learning the fundamental theorem of calculus daunting, read Hardy first. This is not a mathematical treatise; rather, it is the reflections of one of the greatest mathematical minds in modern times looking back on his life. It's about mathematics as beautiful ideas, not as algebra problems. (He uses the word "apology" in a somewhat antiquated fashion to mean "justification," not "regret.)
  
  
• The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Although Taleb writes like a pompous asshole, the fact is that this book is a very interesting examination of how accepted statistical thinking has been clobbering us. My #1 recommendation these past few years to all my friends.
  
  

Like justrasputin says, there usually is quite a lot of work to be done before you start to really see the beauty everyone refers to. I'd like to suggest a few book about mathematics, written by mathematicians that explicitly try to capture the beauty -

By Marcus Du Sautoy (A group theorist at oxford)

1. Symmetry
   
2. The Music of the Primes
   
   By G.H. Hardy,
   
3. A Mathematician's Apology
   
   Also, a good collection of seminal works -
   God Created the Integers
   
   And a nice starter -
   What is Mathematics
   
   Good luck and don't give up!

Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh.
Nature's Numbers by Ian Stewart.
A Mathematician's Apology by G.H. Hardy (sort of a pure mathematician's manifesto). I strongly recommend Apology, moreso because Hardy goes over two very basic proofs in Number Theory in a very enlightening way.