Rating: 
Summary: The classic from the Great Master and founder of Taoism
Review: This book is a necessity for anyone who looks with distrust at the excessive organization and mechanization that our country and other countries have gone through, Lao Tze reminds us that enevitably "all things come back to their roots", and "to go far is to return". Also contains the essential teaching of the Tao or the "Way". Includes penetrating insight from this Great Master. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Sensible and Beautiful
Review: After looking at dozens of translations, this is the one I kept. It hasn't lost all poetry, and seems true to the spirit of the Tao as I understand it. Still, it's readable by anyone who sits down with it and contemplates.
Rating:
Summary: A stripped-down edition for beginners, with a bonus.
Review: Anyone who may be looking for a stripped-down edition of the Tao Te Ching, one without Introduction, Commentaries, or Footnotes, so that one may immediately come to grips with this most fascinating and profound of texts without any distracting impedimenta at all, could hardly do better than get hold of a copy of this book. A brief description of its translator, Dr John C. H. Wu, will be found in the Introduction to Red Pine's 'Lao-tzu's Taoteching.' From Red Pine, who attended a graduate course on the Tao Te Ching given by Dr Wu at the College of Chinese Culture in Taiwan many years ago, we learn that he was a person of considerable attainments. Besides translating the Tao Te Ching, Dr Wu also translated the New Testament, drafted his country's constitution, and served as China's ambassador to the Vatican and it's chief representative to the Hague. Clearly we are dealing here, not with some sort of 'mystical' dreamer, but with an accomplished scholar, diplomat, and man of the world, and one who must have realized the world has never stood in greater need of Lao Tzu's religion of peace than it does in our present era of aggression. After a brief Foreword, and a couple of pages of Editor's Notes, we are immediately confronted by the text. Here is an example of Dr Wu's style from the opening of Chapter 29, slightly adjusted since it should be set out as poetry: "Does anyone want to take the world and do what he wants with it? / I do not see how he can succeed. // The world is a sacred vessel, which must not be tampered with or grabbed after. / To tamper with it is to spoil it, and to grasp it is to lose it" (page 59). In the present age of manipulators both great and small, could there be any more apt words for us than these? And could they have been expressed more effectively? One doubts it. But it gets better. Classical Chinese is an extremely rich language, a language of multiple meanings. No English translation, no matter how good - and Dr Wu's is very good indeed - could possibly hope to capture more than a fraction of the meaning inherent in the Chinese text. Given this, we see the hand of the diplomat at work in Dr Wu's next move, for facing each page of the English translation he has given us Wang Pi's edition of the original Chinese text. Evidently Dr Wu went to some pains to present us with a truly striking version of this text, for we are told that it is reproduced from the Lao Chieh Lao edition compiled by Ts'ai T'ing Kan, and privately printed in 1922. It would seem we have been given a collector's item, and it is certainly one of the most beautifully printed Chinese texts of the Tao Te Ching that I have ever seen. The traditional full-form Chinese characters are printed in a large, clear, bold font, and even a beginner, after a week's study of the Chinese radicals, would have no trouble at all making out the structure of even the more complex characters. Somehow I get the feeling that Dr Wu would like YOU to become that beginner... There is of course enough to keep anyone busy pondering for years in any competent English translation of the Tao Te Ching. But for those who may find themselves stirred by the visual beauty of the Chinese characters, each of which is an exquisitely balanced and supreme work of art, and who may be curious to learn more about them and how they work and what they mean, there are a number of books that would help. One of them is the 'Gate of All Marvelous Things : A Guide to Reading the Tao Te Ching' by Gregory C. Richter. This is an interlinear edition of the Tao Te Ching which gives the Chinese text in simplified characters, pinyin transliterations, a literal word-by-word gloss and a final translation. By means of this book you can learn to read the original, or some of your favorite passages, in Chinese. I think that if one or two of you were so impelled, Dr Wu would be left feeling very happy indeed. He seems to be a man with a keen desire to share the most important and beautiful things he has found in life.
Rating: 
Summary: The Opposite of Taosim
Review: Considering that the whole point of Taosim is economy (economy of thought, economy of words, economy of action), the idea of turning Lao Tze's sparse, consise language into easy-to-read new-age philosophy is absurd. I'm not a purist. I don't mind new translations. But to rewrite a classic by missing the entire point of the original must be a first.
Rating:
Summary: My first Tao Te Ching translation!
Review: I had read Ursula's science fiction, and loved it.
I was walking through "a book store" and her
name caught my eye in the Eastern Thought
section. The rest is history. The Tao Te Ching
is a book that can help you survive in this
century, by remembering what to treasure the most.
Ursula's version is free of sexism, and other power-tripping sometimes added by Westerners.
She does an excellent job of helping us get to
the meaning of the Tao Te Ching, without destroying the beautiful poetry.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for those on a spiritual journey
Review: I have been a big fan of Ms. Le Guin's writing for many, many years now. I now understand some source of the depths of meaning I have always found in her science fiction (cf. "Left Hand of Darkness"). It speaks to me. So does this translation. I have it on good authority that the translation is about as good as one can get, and still preserve the glimpses of the author's personality. My good friend from Beijing has the Tao in its original language: even he has difficulty with the ancient dialect at times. He is using this version, in English, to share with his teenage son, because it seems to preserve the sense of the text.
Rating:
Summary: too much!
Review: I'll be the first to admit my admiration for Le Guin as a writer and a person. But there is zero justification for this new interpolation. Like Mitchell's "New English Version," it further trivializes Taoism in order to make the Tao Te Ching more palatable to the (New Age) masses. The worst part is that Le Guin's and Mitchell's versions are gaining a bigger and bigger foothold in the market of TTC translations. One wonders how many people have absorbed this stuff and called themselves "Taoists" afterwards. I shudder to consider it.
Rating:
Summary: unpretentious, simple, beautiful, and thought-provoking.
Review: I've bought several versions of the Tao Te Ching over the years, my favorite being that by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Le Guin's "rendition" startled me with its everyday language and showed the Tao in a new light. Translations of this work vary considerably, so I was particularly impressed with Le Guin's inclusion of material explaining what led her to this undertaking and why she cast Lao Tzu's ideas the way she did. This honesty and the bare, simple beauty of her language seem to me very much an expression of the Tao. In a world where everything seems so strident and competetive, this simple account of what one person found in this very old and much-loved book is more valuable to me than shelves full of scholarly, definitive, acclaimed, or approved translations. This book not only talks about the Tao, it exemplifies the Tao.
Rating:
Summary: unpretentious, simple, beautiful, and thought-provoking.
Review: I've bought several versions of the Tao Te Ching over the years, my favorite being that by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Le Guin's "rendition" startled me with its everyday language and showed the Tao in a new light. Translations of this work vary considerably, so I was particularly impressed with Le Guin's inclusion of material explaining what led her to this undertaking and why she cast Lao Tzu's ideas the way she did. This honesty and the bare, simple beauty of her language seem to me very much an expression of the Tao. In a world where everything seems so strident and competetive, this simple account of what one person found in this very old and much-loved book is more valuable to me than shelves full of scholarly, definitive, acclaimed, or approved translations. This book not only talks about the Tao, it exemplifies the Tao.
Rating:
Summary: Spare, beautiful rendition
Review: I've read a handful of Tao Te Ching translations and examined many more, but this one is by far my favorite. It's not because of its accuracy to the original text. Le Guin says up front that that wasn't her intention. Still, I find it a more faithful translation than most of the classics, which Le Guin discusses in the book's appendix. The reason is because Le Guin has captured the spirit of Tao. Her spare, gorgeous language goes to the heart. I came upon her version at a giant bookstore with dozens of Tao Te Chings. I wanted one, but I didn't know which. So I picked up a bunch that looked interesting and read the first three "chapters" of each. Le Guin's won hands down. It moved me in just that short of a time. Also, perhaps it's relevant, that I'm an anarchist (an issue that Le Guin coincidentally touches on in the book) as well as an atheist. This book connected with the sense of inner peace I get from these two beliefs.
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