If you’re not already familiar with the basic story of Journey to the West, check out the Wikipedia page for it. It’s a classic staple of Chinese literature, and Arthur Waley’s translation is quite entertaining and accessible for even those that have never read a single piece of Chinese literature before.

That being said, Waley only translates about 30 out of 100 total chapters of Journey, but the ones he chooses are some of the good ones from what my Chinese literature professor said. He does leave out some other important chapters, but Monkey as it is stands up on its own well enough, and it’ll entice you enough to seek out one of the full translations.

If you’ve ever been interested in reading the original novel and don’t actually know Chinese, this is probably the best copy to start with.