Recommended I Ching books
On this shelf:
- Two to get you started: I Ching: walking your path, creating your future, Everyday I Ching
- Two to take you further: Total I Ching, The Laws of Change
- Two exceptional free translations
I Ching: walking your path, creating your futureHilary Barrett |
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This is my own book, which is designed to work well as a beginner's I Ching - to be approachable and understandable without fuss - but without 'simplifying' away the essential nature of the oracle itself. The introduction addresses the whole process of divination, including actually interpreting your reading. And the commentaries on each hexagram and line are nourished by experience - my own, and that of community members and people I've read for over the years. I hope you'll find the end result useful!
(Click on the flags above to visit Amazon and read user reviews.)
The Everyday I ChingSarah Dening |
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This is a commentary, not a translation - I would definitely not recommend it as your only I Ching book. But used alongside a good translation, it will add a great deal to your experience of the I Ching. It is based on Sarah Dening's use of the I Ching in her work as a psychotherapist, and so her ideas are supported by a wealth of valuable experience. The result is very good indeed and extremely useful, particularly if you are just starting to use the I Ching. Dening's language is clear and straightforward, and her interpretations are full of insight.
Total I Ching: Myths for ChangeStephen Karcher |
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My full review of this one is on the translations page. In sum: this is Stephen Karcher's most recent translation in print (though the text used in the Total Yijing software is actually a revised, enlarged version). It is poetic, suggestive, soul-stirring, rich in imagery and story, always drawing you deeper into the world of your reading. There's a breadth and depth of meaning here you won't find in anyone else's work: Karcher always aims to draw out all the possibilities, to cast light on all the Yijing's many facets, never to narrow things down to the 'correct' version.
If you're buying this one, you don't really need I Ching Plain and Simple, as Total I Ching is the more recent work, and contains all the 'meat' of the earlier one.
The Laws of ChangeJack Balkin |
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Again, my full review of this one is on the I Ching translations page. I include it here because it's an excellent work in its own right - one of my favourites to quote from - and a perfect counterbalance to Total I Ching. Where Karcher is poetic, Balkin is logical; where Karcher is open and imaginative, Balkin gives specific interpretation and advice. Bringing these two books together - and they sit next to one another on my desk - is a constant reminder that the I Ching is greater than the sum of its translations.
Recommended free I Ching translations online
There are two truly outstanding I Ching translations currently being given away by their authors. Both are works of imagination, originality and scholarship in a way that a great many published I Ching books aren't. They're LiSe Heyboer's YiJing, Book of Sun and Moon and Bradford Hatcher's Book of Changes.
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