About This Site

What this is

The Zhuangzi Bookshelf (book.themodel.be/zhuangzi/) is a book guide for people who want to read the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) — or have opened a complete translation cold and given up. This English edition selects five titles currently available on amazon.com and presents them in a reading order that won't defeat you — from an accessible selection to the complete writings. A Japanese edition is also maintained, alongside sister shops such as The Socrates Bookshelf and the general Philosophy Bookshelf.

The editorial room's standing rule of thumb is that the wrong first book is what makes people give up on an author. Zhuangzi is a special case: open a full translation without the underlying moves — free and easy wandering, the equality of all things — and the parables read as a heap of odd stories, so the reader quits before reaching the delight. That is why we treat the design of the reading order as the most important thing we do.

Which English books stand in for the Japanese lineup

This English edition grew out of our Japanese one, but it is not a translation of it. The Japanese shelf is built on Japanese-language books — an introductory guide by Genyū Sōkyū and the classic Japanese translations by Kanaya Osamu, Fukunaga Mitsuji, and Ikeda Tomohisa — and none of those have English editions. So for each role in the lineup we have chosen the closest respected English work: an accessible selection with commentary (Ziporyn's Essential Writings) in place of the introductory guide; a poetic way in (Merton's Way of Chuang Tzu) for the interpretive slot; a readable complete translation (Watson) and a scholarly annotated one (Ziporyn's Complete Writings) in place of the standard and alternative Japanese translations; and a scholarly reconstruction (Graham's Inner Chapters) as the study edition. The roles are mirrored; the specific books are the best English counterparts, not the same titles.

The one honesty note that shapes this site

With a translated classic, the fact that matters most is whether an edition is complete, a selection, or an interpretation — and we never blur it. Merton's Way of Chuang Tzu is a set of free readings made from other people's translations, not a scholarly rendering. Ziporyn's Essential Writings is a selection (the complete Inner Chapters plus extracts), not the whole book. Watson and Ziporyn's Complete Writings are full translations of all thirty-three chapters. Graham's Inner Chapters is a scholarly reconstruction that reorders the text. Each review states plainly which kind of book it is describing, because a reader who wants the whole Zhuangzi and buys a selection — or wants the flavor and buys a 700-page scholarly edition — has been let down.

How books are chosen and rated

• Judgements about the works themselves rest on the editorial room's reading and bibliographic checking. Star ratings are our own; no Amazon customer reviews are reproduced. Where a rating rests on study of the text and edition rather than a cover-to-cover read, the review's editorial note says so.
• Difficulty ratings are our own. Each review states what kind of edition it is — selection, interpretation, complete translation, or reconstruction — and what role it can honestly play.
• All descriptions are written by us; no publisher copy is reproduced.
• We avoid word-for-word quotation of the classical text. Where we touch a famous passage (the butterfly dream, the useless tree), we give only a brief editorial paraphrase, clearly marked as our own gloss, and never present it as a reproduction of any translator's wording.
• Cover images are jacket-style images of our own design and differ from the actual covers.
• Prices and availability change, so we do not print them; always check the Amazon product page.

Amazon link disclosure

As an Amazon Associate, this site (The Zhuangzi Bookshelf) may earn from qualifying purchases.

Book links on this edition go to product pages on Amazon (amazon.com). If a purchase is made through them, this site may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Commissions never influence the ratings — recommending books you will actually finish, rather than books that merely sell, is in the end what serves readers best.

Privacy policy

This is a static site; no personal information is collected server-side. The browser's localStorage is used solely to count link clicks (to improve the ranking's accuracy); that data stays in your browser and is never transmitted. Once you follow a link to Amazon, Amazon.com's privacy policy applies.

Contact

For corrections and inquiries, please use the contact address on our sister site soqdoq.com.