Lao-Tzu; Addiss & Lombardo trans, Tao Te Ching (2007)

Lao-Tzu.
Tao Te Ching.
Translated by Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo.
Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications, 2007.
Originally published: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Wikipedia Articles:

• Laozi.
• Tao Te Ching.
• Tao.
• Wu wei.
• Taoism.
• Taoist philosophy.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

• Laozi.
• Daoism.
• Religious Daoism.

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This edition of the Addiss and Lombardo translation has these dust jacket blurbs by Gary Snyder:

• "Of the many translations I have read in English, this is unquestionably the best."
• "This crystalline translation of the Tao Te Ching is accurate down to the nuance and is as concisely poetic as the original. It preserves the quirks and flavors of the original text. The translators harkened to the message of the book itself, and kept it clear and gently strong."

I chose this book on the basis of these endorsements by Gary Snyder (also, it's a nice little hardback, printed on nice paper). While this translation is very poetic (how would I know that it follows the original text very closely?) I also found it very terse and cryptic. This edition has no explanatory notes or commentary; the Introduction by Burton Watson provides some historical context but is of no help in understanding the text. As a beginner encountering the Tao Te Ching for the first time I often found this edition too cryptic and occasionally, to me, incomprehensible. I think an edition with added commentary or explanatory notes would be very helpful. Here are some alternatives.

• Lao Tzu. Lao-Tzu's Taoteching: with selected commentaries from the past 2,000 years. Translated by Red Pine. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2018.
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
• Laozi. Daodejing. Translated by Edmund Ryden. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
• Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Translated by D. C. Lau. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin Books, 1963.
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
• Lao Zi. Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation. Translated by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.
  (has much commentary by the translators)
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
• Lao Tzu. The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought. Translated by Arthur Waley. New York: Grove Press, 1958.
  (has a lengthy introduction)
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
• Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way. Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications, 2019.
  (has some explanatory footnotes)
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
• Laozi. The Daodejing of Laozi. Translated by Philip J. Ivanhoe. Hackett Classics. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003.
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
• Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

The Wikipedia article on Tao Te Ching contains a list of "notable translations". The Bibliography of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article "Laozi" includes many translations.

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