What book is the great Stan Lee seen reading in Doctor Strange? Following the end of Phase 1, the MCU started to experiment a little more, such as opening up the cosmic side of their universe with 2014's Guardians Of The Galaxy. While that entry was seen as something of a gamble at the time, it turned out to be a resounding success, which was largely down to its ensemble cast and the unique tone director James Gunn brought to it. Marvel pushed the boat out even further with Doctor Strange, which explored the magical side of the MCU.
Doctor Strange starred Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, a former surgeon turned sorcerer. The film was directed by Scott Derrickson and featured some trippy visuals and fun setpieces. Doctor Strange served very much as an origin story for both the character and the use of magic in the MCU, sometimes to its determent as the story felt a little uncooked and generic. Strange himself would later reappear in Thor: Ragnarok and both Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, and will return for an upcoming solo sequel.
Doctor Strange was created by the late, great Stan Lee, who regularly made fun cameos in movies based on his work. Some of his best appearances include the original Iron Man and Ant-Man. He made another brief appearance in the Doctor Strange movie during the sequence where Strange and Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are being chased by villain Kaecilius, who causes the world to morph and tilt around them. This leads to a moment where they slide onto the window of a passing bus, with Lee seen reading a book called The Doors Of Perception.
The Doors Of Perception was written by Brave New World author Aldous Huxley and was published in 1954. It's a non-fiction look at Huxley's experiments with the psychedelic mescaline, recounting his visions while on the drug and how it impacted his views on art and psychology. The author would continue using psychedelics too and followed up with Heaven And Hell, another essay on the subject; the band The Doors also borrowed their name from The Doors Of Perception. While the book has no particular bearing on Doctor Strange's story, the psychedelic nature of both the comic and the movie makes the ties obvious.
James Gunn shot Stan Lee's Doctor Strange cameo and revealed several alternate takes were shot, including Stan asking another passenger if they know what "excelsior" means or laughing at a Garfield book and stating "He HATES Mondays but he LOVES lasagna!" While the latter sounds like fun, there's something fitting about him reading The Doors Of Perception instead.