Rating: 
Summary: Travellogue to China
Review: I was pleased at the start of this book, to have some geographical descriptions but it became more of a travel diary of where to go and what not to do. It is understandable that such an elusive prey as solitary hermits requires determined searching and physical effort, but less of the travellogue and more of the interviews may be useful. If you want to follow in some of Porter and Johnson's footsteps, be sure to have real time stamina and energy. This appears to be an exhaustive examination of the roads to travel. Little here to gain from insight and spiritual discovery, though there are a few gems hidden in the very wordy treatise. Not recommended for impatient travellers.
Rating:
Summary: Travellogue to China
Review: I was pleased at the start of this book, to have some geographical descriptions but it became more of a travel diary of where to go and what not to do. It is understandable that such an elusive prey as solitary hermits requires determined searching and physical effort, but less of the travellogue and more of the interviews may be useful. If you want to follow in some of Porter and Johnson's footsteps, be sure to have real time stamina and energy. This appears to be an exhaustive examination of the roads to travel. Little here to gain from insight and spiritual discovery, though there are a few gems hidden in the very wordy treatise. Not recommended for impatient travellers.
Rating: 
Summary: Many lessons, many paths
Review: If you have ever had any hermit-leanings whatsoever this is the book for you. *I* found it to be very interesting. Inspiring to see how spirituality survives all onslaughts. A joy to read
Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Little Book
Review: This book manages to do two things at the same time - it gives some very nice offhand discourses on Buddhism and the Buddhist (and Taoist!) hermit life, as well as provide an interesting travelogue of a corner of China that is rarely visited, both in the literal and literary sense.One would not expect a foreigner to get to these parts of China, much less be in a position feel his way around once he got there. While I enjoyed the Buddhist premise of the book (being a closet Buddhist myself), I enjoyed it even more as a truly offbeat piece of travel writing. Travelers manage to get to the ends of the earth, but not too many of them can communicate with the locals well enough to describe their mindset to us who are at home. Thank you, Mr. Porter!
Rating:
Summary: No shortcuts to heaven
Review: This book provide a fleeting image of cloud people, the Chinese hermits who have turned their backs on this world of red dust. There is a stark contrast between the monks and hermits, and the busy American, rushing about asking homely questions like "Were you upset when the Red Guards burned your library?" or "Do you get any mail?"
Yet, I find myself returning to "Road to Heaven" because there are a few anecdotes, gems and asides about famous hermits that make it worthwhile reading. Searching for a lost quote, I return to the hasty interviews with abbots and nuns standing guard at old temples and shrines. And I find more to their stories than first meets the eye.
There is stillness and tranquility in the frugal lives of the Chinese hermits, and a firm unwavering grip on the essentials of religion. They represent the last living flicker of the spiritual wisdom originating with Lao-tzu. And now their world vanishes into the darkness, like sparks from a windswept fire.
Rating:
Summary: Great reading enjoyment!
Review: This book reads like an adventure story but it is all true...Bill Porter speaks Mandarin and has many friends in China so he could travel into territories where few Westerners are able to go without a guide. He won the trust of many hermits high up in the mountains of China and tells a wonderful tale of their survival against all odds...Sadly, they are a dying breed and the last of a generation who dedicated themselves to a monastic life of meditation and living without wordly goods. A really good read! Marilynn Seits
Rating:
Summary: On the Road
Review: This is the book that got me started on Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. I had just finished Peter France's Hermits, on Western hermits but with a tantalizing reference to Lao Tzu and Chinese hermits. The only single intro to Chinese hermits was (still is) Porter's. Yes, it's a travelogue, with personal idiosyncrasies, but crammed with historical anecdotes and information. The spare interviews are, upon later investigation of Chinese hermits throughout history, just right. The book is a travel guide because Porter's knowledge is invaluable; like a travel guide, it assumes only your curiosity and empathy. After this beginner's encounter, the reader wants more, and I recommend Porter's own translations of Han-shan and Stonehouse as follow-up.
Rating:
Summary: The hermit's life is not all warm and fuzzy
Review: Unlike most books on Taoism, Buddhism and Zen this book is not philosophically cute, it doesn't warm the mind, and it's photographs don't make you wish you were on the next plane to China. This book just is. It taught me that being a Chinese hermit is sitting on a dirt floor in a cold, damp, stone hut with a leaky roof and snow, not rose petals, blowing around outside. Where other books left me with images of silk robes, and sitting cross-legged on bamboo mats in beautiful pagodas, this book slapped me in the face with a muddy, wet rag. Even the pictures were in black and white and although the hermits radiated an inner beauty and peace, their surroundings looked so bleak and inhospitable. I got a bang out of their disdain and boredom with tourists, and I now respect these wise and wonderful hermits all the more for the physical harshness of their living conditions and the clarity of their minds. As it was with one brilliantly in-tune hermit: "While he was talking, the gruel boiled over, and the watchdog was invited in to clean it up". He then concluded his fascinating discourse with the author with these words, "I'm just a mountain man, you know. I just string words together. They don't necessarily make any sense. How about some hot peppers in your potatoes?" For my little, insignificant mind anyway, raw Zen and raw Taoism.
Rating:
Summary: The Trail of the Tao
Review: What a great book! An American expatriate living at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan takes advantage of the lifting of travel restrictions to see if China's legendary tradition of hermits still endures. He arrives in 1989, during the student demonstrations in Tienanmen Square. The officials assure him that the decadent hermits have been completely wiped out long ago. In spite of this, the scholar presses inland to the heart of China. He finds himself drawn to the Chungnan mountains- the mighty spine of the dragon, the bones of China itself, dividing the Yangtze country in the south from the Yellow river country to the north. He doesn't realize that this is where shamanism first arose in China, if not in the human world. This was where the Immortals lived. This was where Lao-tzu wrote the Tao te Ching. Here, he finds his hermits, Buddhist and Taoist, young and old, male and female. I think that the best part in the entire book was when one ancient hermit, who had been living in the mountains since 1939, asked the author, "Who is this "Mao" that you speak of?" After his initial contact with Chungnan hermits (he would return) the author heads back down into modern China. He finds that the Tienanmen Massacre has occurred. Upon reading this book I got a sense that the true bones of China were untouched by Communism, as they will no doubt be left untouched by Corporatism. I found this book to be inspiring- you could not invent a piece of fiction this good. However, I also found myself wishing that the author had brought that ancient hermit back with him to face down the butchers of Tienanmen. One man centered in the Tao can do much....
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: wonderful
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