Well now, Tarot heart... there are books and books... What do you mean by best and "best" for what purpose? How can a book be measured like flour? To quote the song,
How Deep is the Ocean? How High is the Sky?
Aside from the fact that people read Tarot completely differently, they read BOOKS completely differently. One person's earthshattering discovery is another's snoozefest. Products can be ranked, but WHO is ranking them? One of the saddest facts of the modern world is the proliferation of these bizarre lists that people allow to do their thinking for them. "Top ten," "Bestsellers," Double Platinum." Which is why so MANY people read J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown and so FEW read Phillip Pullman and Umberto Eco. Does anyone actually believe TITANIC is a better movie than L.A. CONFIDENTIAL? Grrrr. Sorry. I
know better, but there are 100 million 12-year-old girls and James Cameron standing on the other shore wagging their fingers at me.
"My Heart will Go... down the toilet."
I know my own mind and while I solicit opinions constantly, I want those opinions to actually be specific to my intent and sourced carefully. I'm a snob that way. Recommending books is less like instructions for a fireman's axe (
Smash glass in case of emergency) and more like prescribing a subtle SRI cocktail in a psych ward. I have friends to whom I know I'll eventually recommend a book but have held off because I felt it wasn't time yet. I also have friends I wouldn't trust to recommend jelly, let alone a book.
More to the point, people have different abilities and interests and educational levels. We are not mindless insects, as much as James Cameron and Viacom might wish it so. I own hundreds of books on Divination, but I can pretty much guarantee that what I think the "Best" are will not coincide with everyone else's because I'm (proudly) a freak with specific interests. My main criteria is a certain level of verbal facility and an actual GRASP of their topic, else why am I bothering. Those should be a tall order for (uhh) a BOOK, but esoteric texts are famous for crappy editing and shameful pandering.
Like gregory, I can't
stand the Bunning school of cookie-cutter Tarot. But I have other low tolerance flavors: the fluffy new age "do whatever feels good" school is one of my unending peeves. I also don't have a lot of patience with pseudo-academic "any horseshit will do" version of occult history where people can't manage basic research or factchecking or logic. Or most annoyingly, invented-from-scratch, gnosis-in-a-can, "because I said so" titles where an author either cobbles together something from equally febrile strip-mall gurus or cribs half their material (without attributions) from smarter people. Or the laziest of all, the people who treat a divinatory system like it fell from the sky because they can't be bothered to actually learn what they're attempting to teach. BS always puts a vicious edge on honesty for me. Books in any of these camps give me hives and meanspirited thoughts and inspire extended bilious rants, obviously.
So... the trouble is that the above rant eliminates about 90% of what is available on Tarot and/or divination. Depending on what you are wanting by way of a title I can think of some great books I'd recommend to just about anyone as jumping of places. But without some sense of direction I'm just typing a list of titles. I have a couple questions...
Have you been reading long? Do you read with a particular deck? Do you gravitate towards Golden Dawn or other system? How confident are you and in what areas? Do you read professionally? What is the main focus of your use of Tarot and are you looking to deepen that or look farther afield? Do you use Tarot for stuff other than divination? Do you like trivia? Do you prefer footnotes and academic substantiation in your reading material or are you okay with looser protocol? Do you have interest in history or do dates and citations make your head cave in? Do you prefer rigorous discipline or generic rah-rah encouragement?
Tarot heart, I ask all this not to be persnickety but because I literally don't know how to answer your question. So, aside from just thumping a couple of titles I personally like up here, I don't know how to respond.
although recommending books is something I literally love to do.
Again, without some guidelines I don't know WHAT inspires you so it's pretty much a spin of the Wheel as to whether suggestions will be meaningful. Right nwo I'm reading a book of 12th century astrology I find really inspiring, but I can pretty much guarantee I'm one of about 7 people on AT for which that would be true.
So tell us what books have YOU found inspiring and maybe those will point us in a a more coherent direction...