The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu is one of the most widely read and deeply cherished books in the world, a work many consider the wisest book ever written. In his introduction, translator Brian Browne Walker says, It is less a book than a living, breathing angel.

Brian Browne Walker’s is one of the few modern English versions to be translated directly from the original Chinese. In his translation, Walker stays close to the direct literal accuracy of the Chinese characters while producing a modern, exceptionally clear version that has the ring and voice of Lao Tzu, a man who may or may not have been a single individual. I have come to think of Lao Tzu less as a man who once lived, Walker writes, and more as a song that plays, eternal and abiding.