What are your Must Have Tarot Books

[SweetIsTheTruth]

It's not a book on tarot. It's COMEDY! (Although it can be great fun to take the book and a deck to the party, have everyone draw a card, then read their 'fortunes,' especially if someone draws the Empress!)

[inertia]

I totally agree!!! Haha!
However, I must admit that I use the interpretations given in this book when I do readings and combine the tarot of manara(I was taught this system in Russia, there are actually two books on this deck, too) along with RWS cards It trully works!

[tarotbear]

No one has mentioned my FAVORITE 'Must Have' Tarot book of all time: "It's All in the Cards: Tarot Reading Made Easy."

I hear it's now back as a reprint!


(Shameless self-promotion, I know! )

[VGimlet]

Originally Posted by Alta

Tarot Reversals: Mary K. Greer: includes upright meanings and many useful sections. My go-to reference book.

Me too.

And the Dictionary of Symbols by Cirlot.

[Beacon]

The best book I have read, for both beginners and advanced, is called The System of Symbols: a new way to look at Tarot by Toni Allen. It teaches systematically from the fundamentals and is comprehensive. I have read plenty of popular and erudite books but this is the only one i bother with.

If anybody is interested i would be happy to spell out why it is different, unique in fact and better than the rest [yes, i really do think it is the best!], though you can see the Amazon reviews, except the unreasonable 3 star, do it 5 star justice.

[jema]

Originally Posted by SweetIsTheTruth

For Tarot De Marseille:

Mel's Methods
Personality, Divination & the Tarot by Sargent
Collins Gem Tarot by Rowenna Stuart

(Mel's methods are so complete, I may ditch the other two listed above.)

Many many thanks for posting the Mel's methods. Just what I have been looking for!

Most of the books I was gonna recommend already been mentioned but I want to add two books by Marcus Katz 'Tarosophy' and 'Around the Tarot in 78 days' the latter co-written with Tali Goodwin.
I am reading another Katz/Goodwin book right now too called 'Tarot face to face' but only gotten a few chapters in yet. So far I really like it though.

[MeeWah]

The Sacred Tarot Unveiled - Allyson Walsh
The Dictionary of Symbols - Cirlot
Tarot Plain and Simple - Anthony Louis
It's All in the Cards Tarot: Reading Made Easy - John Mangiapane

[greatdane]

Tarot Plain and Simple for general tarot reference.

[momentarylight]

Pictures from the Heart by Sandra Thomson was a gift from a dear friend several years ago and although I rarely use books now, that would be the main one. It is wide-ranging, in depth and intelligent and often spurs an idea or memory.

When I was very new to tarot I used various others including books by Rachel Pollack and Mary Greer, especially Mary. I'd encourage people to read widely and play with ideas in various books. Mary Greer is a classic writer. Her knowledge of history, especially of RWS type decks, is extensive and she also sees the bigger picture. She is a lovely reader as well.

I think that Barbara Moore is an excellent tarotist, If I get down to serious reading again I'd certainly obtain her book on spreads. She takes spread design to another level and I think she has quite strong psychic abilities although she may not agree with this opinion .

[poppiesrossi]

"Around the Tarot in 78 Days" is pretty amazing and first tarot book I would recommend to anyone.

I read some tarot books by well known authors.. none which stick out for me. They seemed too convoluted for me and confused me even further.

Tarot Blogs are my favorite resource as well as this forum.