Barleywine
Most of us buy tarot books (a few or a lot) along with our tarot decks. Quite a few of those are read cover-to-cover, others until we can't stand any more, and then they go back on the shelf to gather dust. A much smaller number become constant companions in our daily practice. Even if we no longer need books to successfully work our way through an interpretation, they can still be worthwhile sources of inspiration, a way to "jump-start" our intuition when the card images aren't enough.
I'm curious which books (if any) you find indispensible on a routine basis. I have several but I'm interested in gathering a few more worthy ones. I've read many of the threads on "best beginner" books, but I'm really after the "most useful" as a reference work, the way one would use a dictionary or (especially) a thesaurus.
Presently, the books I keep close at hand are:
For more general use -
The Tarot Revealed, Eden Gray (best of the three)
Mastering the Tarot, Eden Gray (lesser of the three)
A Complete Guide to the Tarot, Eden Gray (least of the three)
A Description of the Cards of the Tarot (Equinox Vol. 1, No. 8), Aleister Crowley
The Magickal Tarot, Tony Willis
Keywords for the Crowley Tarot, Banzhaf & Theler
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, A.E. Waite (when I'm feeling overheated and need a dash of cold water in the face)
A Guide to Tarot Card Meanings (Kindle edition), Mark McElroty
For deeper inspiration -
The Book of Thoth, Aleister Crowley
The Tarot, Paul Foster Case
The Qabalistic Tarot, Robert Wang
The Complete Golden Dawn System of Tarot (Vol. 9 of The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic [Golden Dawn papers with commentary]), Israel Regardie
Liber Theta, James Eshelman (who desribes it thus: "Liber Theta is my rewrite and expansion of the Golden Dawn's Second Order document Book T").
Future possibilities -
Both of the Anthony Louis books
A couple of Mary K. Greer's
Possibly Liz Dean's "Ultimate Guide to the Tarot" (the buzz seems positive)
I'm curious which books (if any) you find indispensible on a routine basis. I have several but I'm interested in gathering a few more worthy ones. I've read many of the threads on "best beginner" books, but I'm really after the "most useful" as a reference work, the way one would use a dictionary or (especially) a thesaurus.
Presently, the books I keep close at hand are:
For more general use -
The Tarot Revealed, Eden Gray (best of the three)
Mastering the Tarot, Eden Gray (lesser of the three)
A Complete Guide to the Tarot, Eden Gray (least of the three)
A Description of the Cards of the Tarot (Equinox Vol. 1, No. 8), Aleister Crowley
The Magickal Tarot, Tony Willis
Keywords for the Crowley Tarot, Banzhaf & Theler
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, A.E. Waite (when I'm feeling overheated and need a dash of cold water in the face)
A Guide to Tarot Card Meanings (Kindle edition), Mark McElroty
For deeper inspiration -
The Book of Thoth, Aleister Crowley
The Tarot, Paul Foster Case
The Qabalistic Tarot, Robert Wang
The Complete Golden Dawn System of Tarot (Vol. 9 of The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic [Golden Dawn papers with commentary]), Israel Regardie
Liber Theta, James Eshelman (who desribes it thus: "Liber Theta is my rewrite and expansion of the Golden Dawn's Second Order document Book T").
Future possibilities -
Both of the Anthony Louis books
A couple of Mary K. Greer's
Possibly Liz Dean's "Ultimate Guide to the Tarot" (the buzz seems positive)