Reddit reviews Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory (Ideas Explained)
We found 2 Reddit comments about Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory (Ideas Explained). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Open Court
Awesome question! I hope more people come to answer it. I'd like more sources myself. I know of two sources that might be useful though.
http://chinahistorypodcast.com/china-history-podcast-050-daoism-part-1-2
A student of Chinese history, Laszlo Mongtomery, involved in the region, runs a solid podcast about a lot of the widespread of Chinese history. He's done a couple episodes on Daoism. I do not think he completely covers all the nuance of topics, but it is hard to blame him for that, and he does a great job of giving historical summaries.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812695631
A generally solid book that covers some of the history of Daoism, though it mostly focuses on the philosophy and meaning in Daoism and Daoist short stories.
That's all I have right now, but it is a start. You could probably find a lot of daoism sprinkled in the big books about general Chinese history. Of course those things often read drier than the desert and feel just as unending. Hope it helped.
The problem is that the Dao De Jing and other Daoist texts are not simple things to read. I would say that, yes, what Dao is is perfectly explained by the Dao De Jing, but only if you know how to read it. There are plenty of secondary sources out there providing commentary and alternate translations (because these things are never so straightforward) on the Dao De Jing. Personally, I would recommend the following two translations on the Dao De Jing, this one by Roger Ames and this one by Hans-Georg Moeller. Also, if you want a close reading of what Dao is I recommend you pick up Daoism Explained, also by Hans-Georg Moeller, a lot of which is freely available to read on Google Books. For the specific question you posted here, I would recommend reading section "The Wheel--An Image of the Dao" which begins on page 27 of Daoism Explained and is one of the sections freely available in the last link I provided. I hope this helps.
Edit: Just wanted to add that I've read a lot of books by different translators and commentators of Daoism, but Hans-Georg Moeller is by far my favorite for both clarity and correctness.