Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Physically it is a comfortable little book to carry, despite being hardcover it is not heavy and has reproductions of classical paintings interspersed between the “chapters” which are actually the poems of the Tao Te King. In its content there is nothing important in the introduction, and the translation is just below average, a mediocre result.
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
One of the great paradoxes of the down the Tao is that is requires careful, focused, effortless attention. As such, this is not a book to be pored over with a ferocious, insatiable appetite for knowledge. That simply misses the point of the Tao. Instead, it's far better and much more rewarding to come back to it once in a while, like reacquainting yourself with an old friend.
challenging
inspiring
fast-paced
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
In my opinion, the author takes too much license to put this classical Chinese text in a modern and contemporary context. This is a risky tactic, because it may denature the essence of one of the most exciting, but most cryptic ancient texts left by China. Mitchell's book does not pretend to be a very in-depth study of Taoism, but rather a series of endnotes, some of which reveal the desperate, Western need to find in classical Chinese texts the religious and moral-ethical categories of Europe; for example, the commentary to poem four says that there is no God when the only thing that exists is God reflects the Christian idea of one true God, when Taoism is clearly an atheistic text AND poem four is about an eternity of the tao that precedes any divinity, and therefore denies it. But as I say these are the risks of a reading of the Tao Te Ching, which is made from the Western need to find morality and God in a text that proclaims its non-existence.
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
Great translation and was poetic
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced