Reddit reviews The Book of Lieh-Tzu

My Asian Religions professor liked to use original texts only in her syllabi. Her reasoning was along the lines of: "why would you read someone else's interpretation when you could read the texts themselves and draw your own conclusions?" I tend to agree with that line of logic (I do understand that books such as the one mentioned can provide a good primer, but you've already that, why not move into the "meat" of the matter?). So, my suggestion would be:

• The Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (the D.C. Lau translation is notable and my favorite)
  
• The Chuang-Tzu by Chuang-Tzu (Burton Watson is an amazing translator and this one is particularly notable)
  
• The Lieh-Tzu by Lieh-Tzu (A.C. Graham translation)
  
  And that should cover a broad range of the "philosophical" side of Taoism. As for the alchemies and the more, shall we say, "eccentric" branches, well, that's a whole different animal. Personally, I haven't delved too much into that side, since there is such an overwhelming amount of texts and practices and schools and etc. However, The Secret of the Golden Flower and Yellow Court Classic are two "big" ones. I'd start there and branch out accordingly.

Its my understanding that modern mandarin differs from the ancient mandarin the text was written in to such an extent that you might as well read it in English since that is your native tongue; and I would recommend the D.C Lau or Jonathon Starr english translation. That being said, the copy you were given is likely just fine and there are a few Etymologists that hang around here that are qualified to say that with any certainty. There is a reading material link on the side-bar you should check out, but I guess the major texts you're going to need in addition to your TTC are the Zhuangzi, the Liezi (Liezi is somewhat controversial but definitely worth the read), and the Huiananzi (This is a much later Han Dynasty text that is optional but interesting). I would also recommend getting several different translations of the TTC and the Zhuangzi in order to see the different ways in which people have interpreted the text.

This seems to be the one. I haven't read it yet, but will. AC Graham's "Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters" is excellent, and if it's anything like that was....