Tao Te Ching - Paperback

The Tao Te Ching, in Isabella Mears's translation, one of the few ever made by a woman, printed with a foreword by Paul Tice.

Eighty-one short chapters, most of them a page or less. It founded Taoism, and the publisher calls it the most translated text on earth after the Bible.

About this edition

Which translation you buy matters more here than with most books, because every translator makes different choices about a text that trades in paradox. Mears leans toward the intuitive reading rather than the strictly literal one.

Who it's for

It suits someone who wants to sit with a few lines at a time. People who keep a copy tend to come back to it over years rather than read it once and shelve it.

From the publisher

The most translated book in the world, next to the Bible, is the Tao Te Ching. Great wisdom can be found on every page. Lao Tzu is believed to have written the text in China in the sixth century BCE. It forms the basis for Taoism, one of the world's great wisdom traditions. In addition to being considered one of the best books ever written, it is also one of the easiest to read.

One of the few women to offer a translation is Mears, who seems to add a more intuitive or sensitive touch. She has created a beautifully rendered translation that deserves to be shared and preserved for generations to come.

See the wider Taoism collection here.