Book

Hello

Today I am going to buy my first book on tarot reading. I am having really hard trouble deciding to buy Tarot for the New Generation or Joan Bunnings book Learning the Tarot.

Which one do you find most helpful for the beginner? I have looked at the reviews and they are really good, but I would like some more input regarding these two books and your views.

Thankyou
AsralAl

If there is a LWB for the deck you've got I'll say read that first.

I've not heard about either of those two books but for the RWS and RWS Clones I'll say The Tarot Bible (Bartlett) and Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot (Pollack) are good starting points. A bit later its worth picking up Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (Pollack).

Enjoy your journey through Tarot!

Yeah, the books Kenny mentioned I would buy.

I have a book, "The Little Big book of Tarot" by Rachel Pollack.

and then another DK book on Tarot, tell the meanings.

I love them both.

The content of the Joan Bunnings book is available free online at http://learntarot.com so if you're only going to buy one of the two, I'd say buy Tarot for a New Generation. Of the two, it's probably the one I would recommend anyway. It has more detailed discussions of the cards, while Learning the Tarot is more keyword-focused. It depends on how you prefer to learn, though.

Tarot for a New Generation is aimed toward teenagers, so if you're older you might find some of the discussion about family and school dynamics off-putting. It depends on your tolerance for that kind of thing, though; I still find it to be a fairly valuable resource.

If the deck you like has a companion book, go with that. I own many tarot books and the one that I like best is "It's All in the Cards" by John Mangiapane. The book is simple and right to the point. No fluff - just good information that makes a lot of sense. It's written by one of our own AT'ers.

'The Complete Tarot Reader' by Theresa Michelsen.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Taro...4840837?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174824385&sr=8-1

This book teaches you HOW TO read and is very thorough.
This book goes through all the questions you're likely to have:
How to phrase a question, symbolism, numbers, elements, reversals, dignities, putting it all together.....

Joan Bunnings book gives you a list of keywords to learn for every card.
I bought it and learned the keywords but it didn't teach me HOW to read. It taught me how to remember keywords.
It took me forever to forget those keywords.
Keywords aren't for everyone although some people love them.
I prefer to learn how to work out what a card is saying for myself.
And as Formicida has already pointed out, you can get it for free from Joan Bunnings' website.

I don't have the other book you mentioned so I can't comment on that one.

I've been looking for decent beginner's books, because I never know what to answer when people ask me for one (I learned in the "Eden Gray is it" days).

Over at www.discountnewagebooks.com is James Ricklef's Tarot Tells the Tale for $3. I'm impressed so far, because he shows you how to put cards together in short three-card readings, as well as giving appendices with card keywords, etc., but it's not limiting, it's not "this card always means this" type of stuff.

For that price you can't go far wrong, and it's an enjoyable read. I'd consider it suitable for a beginner, since you can read the first part, then skip to the back if you need some help, and then look at the readings afterwards. He explains the process very well. There's a section on reversals, and that might be a bit much for you, but it's not incomprehensible, and you don't have to use them, not just starting out.

The other one that I absolutely love is the companion book with the Fantastic Menagerie deck. So if that one tickles your fancy at all, pick up the kit. You'll find a lot of good advice in there about not only the FM, but how to read just about any tarot deck. And a delightful - and clear - writing style.

Sulis said:

Joan Bunnings book gives you a list of keywords to learn for every card.
I bought it and learned the keywords but it didn't teach me HOW to read. It taught me how to remember keywords.
It took me forever to forget those keywords.
Keywords aren't for everyone although some people love them.
I prefer to learn how to work out what a card is saying for myself.

Click to expand...

Why does everyone always focus on the keywords? Her book also has quite a few other things in it; suggestions on how to do readings and exercises about what cards mean to you. As well as a large section withy a couple pages about every card where she explores what the card means to her, including keywords.

I liked her book, but not because of the keywords. Though I do consider it something that is good to start with but needs to be moved on from.

Anyankah said:

Why does everyone always focus on the keywords? Her book also has quite a few other things in it; suggestions on how to do readings and exercises about what cards mean to you. As well as a large section withy a couple pages about every card where she explores what the card means to her, including keywords.

I liked her book, but not because of the keywords. Though I do consider it something that is good to start with but needs to be moved on from.

Click to expand...

I don't mind keywords if I can see how the person giving them as meanings got to them. Joan Bunning doesn't do this.
She doesn't talk about numbers combined with elements, she doesn't link the minors to the majors of the same number. There is no reasoning for her keywords and that's what I don't like.
I like to be given the information to come up with my own meanings not be given a load of keywords to learn parrot fashion: To me that isn't reading, it's reciting.
I know a lot of people like keywords and use them as a 'jumping off point' and that's how they're supposed to be used but to give keywords without any explanation as to how you got to that keyword just wasn't useful for me.

Another reason why I don't think the Bunning book is the best one out there for beginners is because the only spread it gives is the Celtic Cross.
Now the Celtic Cross is a good spread once you can read cards but I think it just confuses folks to give them a spread with 10 positions and loads of interplay between those positions.
I think that beginners books should keep spreads quite small.

There are good things in Joan Bunning's book - the Celtic Cross and the way she describes it would have been excellent in a book that wasn't aimed at people just starting out on their tarot journey.
She also advocates drawing a card a day and journalling which I think is excellent advice.

There are much better books out there for the complete beginner (in my opinion) though.

AstralAl said:

Hello

Today I am going to buy my first book on tarot reading. I am having really hard trouble deciding to buy Tarot for the New Generation or Joan Bunnings book Learning the Tarot.

Which one do you find most helpful for the beginner? I have looked at the reviews and they are really good, but I would like some more input regarding these two books and your views.

Thankyou
AsralAl

Click to expand...

The Bunning book is very good. I also like Tarot for Your Self : A Workbook for Personal Transformation by Mary Greer. That's an excellent book if you're using Tarot for personal growth.