I numbered the books just to make it easier to keep track - they're all of equal value and I didn't grade them.
The five best tarot books for beginners:
1. Anthony Louis, Tarot Plain and Simple
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This is probably the most popular book for total beginners and with good reason. It covers every topic beginners need: a short history of the tarot, tarot structure, card meanings, spreads and how to put it all together. Louis writes well and concise. It's probably impossible to write a better book for beginners that gives intelligent answers to beginners' questions - how and why does the tarot work? and how can I make it work for myself?
2. Mary K. Greer, Tarot for Your Self
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If you want to make tarot reading relevant to your own life, if you want to find a personal connection to each card and start a committed long-term relationship with your deck of cards - work through this book. Many newer books are actually inspired by it. Mary's blog is one of my must-reads.
3. Barbara Moore, Tarot for Beginners
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A very good basic book that gives the beginner a glimpse of the rich world of tarot meanings without intimidating her/him (I hope so at least).
She uses the Universal Waite, Legacy of the Divine and Shadowscape decks to illustrate the book, and that means it prepares you also to work with post-modern decks
Her core meanings, derived from the RWS, are very good and useful. And if you see how she expands them to open up the Legacy and Shadowscape cards, you can really do that in the future with any deck you pick up. She has a blog, too.
4. Mary K. Greer, 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card
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Greer is one of the most celebrated writers about tarot, and this book gives you her 21 steps. You start with the most simple acknowledgement of a tarot card, its name, suit and number and the information they convey, are then encouraged to explore each card, to read about it in books, to look at your own emotional reaction to it, and finally to use it as springboard for imagination and to connect it to your inner self and the journey you're on - you go from the seemingly easy to the seemingly complex and learn a lot on the way. You will choose as reader from these 21 steps the ones that help you most when reading a card or a spread. Greer helps you unlock the meanings even of un-loved cards.
5. Joan Bunning, Learning the Tarot
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We probably all know Joan Bunning's informative, well-structured website that teaches tarot to anyone willing to learn it. She's an amazing teacher, her lessons and exercises are well-thought out, and she focuses on what's important for beginners. There's Goodreads page.
The five best tarot books for intermediate to advanced readers:
1. Deborah Lipp, Tarot Interactions: Become More Intuitive
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Lipp's books focuses on interactions between the tarot and the psyche, other disciplines, patterns, layout and position, interactions among and between cards, with language, with the querent, and finally with experimentation and play. For me, this book went very well together with Elizabeth Hazel's book. Might I say that Mercury helped write Lipp's books, flying between the cards and the rest of the world, making connections? and Jupiter shone on Hazel's book, dignifying each card?
Lipp gives a lot of example readings and I'm sometimes astonished that she interprets the cards so differently from how I would read them - and she makes total sense while doing so. I learned a lot from this book.
2. Elizabeth Hazel, Tarot Decoded
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Hazel's book discusses different forms of dignities - actually the relationship of one card with different contexts: the spread, neighboring cards, elements, numbers, astrology... the whole esoteric baggage that goes with a tarot card. She gives deep insight into each kind of dignity and how it works in a tarot reading. Her discussions about court cards and planetary trumps are especially interesting. You really get a feeling for the different influences on each card.
(I caught her on a little mistake though - she claims that there are "hundreds of constellations" which is of course not true - there are 88 modern constellations.)
3. Anthony Louis, Tarot Beyond the Basics
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Whenever I read this book, I feel that if I had to take one book to a deserted island, it would be probably this one. Lous tells many stories in this book, gives many examples of actual readings, and discusses the cards, different schools of reading and esoteric content in depth. He wrote this book for people who know tarot already and want to expand their horizons. His bibliography is impressive and inspiring. You can take this book as jumping board into tarot history and research. A great book written by a man who really knows his stuff. There's a Goodread page about the book.
4. Benebell Wen, Holistic Tarot
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I'm glad I bought the Kindle version of this book because it's such a fat volume that I couldn't drag it around me if I had the paper version! The many diagrams and tables look not so good on a Kindle, and I open this book quite a lot on my desktop, too. It's a fountain of wisdom. Benebell Wen is a very intelligent person, a true Queen of Swords, and her book covers a lot of ground.
She starts with basic questions like chosing a deck etc, but I didn't put her book into the beginner's section - a beginner might be overwhelmed. (It depends on the beginner - this could actually work well as 1st book...)
Wen gives you so much to work with - numbers, symbols, elements... and a lot of Eastern wisdom. I love her openness to criticism. She encourages the reader to make up his/her own mind. A typical quotation: "You, the practitioner, should consider all variations and adopt the one that feels intuitive to you". See what she does? She sends you off to consider all variations, i.e., do the work and study and think and consider. And then, choose the one that gels with your intuition. If you know good old Bloom's Taxonomy - Benebell Wen is talking to your highest abilities. (Her blog is fantastic, too.)
5. Arthur Rosengarten, Tarot and Psychology, Spectrums of Possibility
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A very interesting look at the tarot through the eyes of a Jungian psychologist. He has done a lot of reading about the tarot and uses tarot in his work but I feel that he's more comfortable when talking about psychology than about tarot. His discussion about archetypes is especially interesting to me. He doesn't challenge the stereotype of the Male Hero (I can recommend Rennie & Gearhart's Feminist Tarot as antidote) but I can forgive him for that. Yes, his book is interesting but shouldn't I have included Andy Matzner's innovative Tarot Activities or Rachel Pollack... she has written so many great books.... I might change this one later. (Rosengarten's website is [ur=http://moonlightcounseling.com/l]here[/url]).
The five best books about special topics:
1. Andrea Green, Kabalah and Tarot: A Step-Up Guide for Everyone
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It's not easy to explain a complex system like the Kabbalah with its dozens of Hebrew words and letters if you don't know Hebrew and the Tree of Life seems like a totally arbitrary diagram to you. Andrea Green is the pen name of Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, and I like their books.
This one doesn't drown you in jargon, it's written for people who are curious but have no earlier knowledge. It's easier to understand than Wang, and DuQuette's book is too playful and ironic for beginners imo.
If you want to see whether Andrea Green's style and tarot sense suit your own, here is a free e-book about card meanings and spreads. Here is the Goodreads page about the book.
2. Emily Auger, Tarot in Culture [two volumes, Kobo]
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A collection of highly interesting scholarly articles about the history, art, symbolism and social function of the tarot. If you feel, like me, that tarot is unfairly being treated as pop culture phenomenon of the fluffy-headed, unscrupulous and easily duped - you'll be happy to read this book. Its contributor list reads like a Who's Who of the tarot world. Two volumes - it could have gone on forever for me! Auger's website is here.
3. Anthony Louis, The Journey of the Fool Around the Zodiac
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A lot has been written about astrology and its connection with the tarot. Louis is one of my favorite tarot writers, and this book makes it all clear and approachable. I'm not sure his short kabbalah introduction chapter is very helpful for people who don't have any kabbalah background but the real focus is on astrology, and there, as always, Louis shines. If you ever felt a cold, hard knot in your stomach when the word DECAN came up - breathe. Louis explains it all, completely painless.
He has a blog, and there's a Goodread page about his book.
4. Joan Bunnings, Learning Tarot Reversals
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There are a number of books about tarot reversals, all of them good. I chose Bunnings' book for my list because she is such a good teacher. She focuses in her book on her own approach to reversed cards - she sees them as weakened energy (either just coming in or just going out) and doesn't discuss other possibilities of interpretations of reversed cards. But she explains her approach so well that you understand the ways a tarot card's meaning can change perfectly. And if you want to explore other approaches to reversed cards, it will be easier to absorb them.
Well, this book is actually a tie with Mary Greer's book about reversals. Aren't we lucky to have so many good books to choose from?
5. Barbara Moore, Tarot Spreads: Layouts and Techniques to Empower Your Readings
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There is quite a number of books about spreads out there; this is the best imo. Moore doesn't give you only a list of interesting spreads but teaches you how to design your own spreads, how to modify existing spreads and even how to do a 78 card reading (I never tried that one). In short, she doesn't only give you fish, she teaches you to fish.
The five best accompanying books for specific decks:
1. M.M. Meleen, Liber M
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I can't praise Meleen's book highly enough. It's not only a well-writen, erudite, fascinating book about her own incomparable Tabula Mundi Tarot - it adds much to your understanding of Tarot. If you struggle with the Thoth, you'll be happy to read this book. If you want to see the esoteric underpinnings of the tarot in action, you'll be even happier. It's a beautifully written book with so many insights - like pomegranate is full of seeds, this book is full of wisdom. (Goodreads reviews)
2. Yoav Ben Dov, Tarot - the Open Reading
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Yoav wrote this book for his CBD deck, but if you want to read with ANY deck from the Tarot de Marseilles tradition (with pip minors, i.e. without narrative minors) but don't know how, you should read this book. He teaches you to really look at the cards and catch their meaning. His book contains lots of information about the majors and minor suits, about Aces and court cards, about each card from the deck... and he also includes spreads. His approach, the open reading approach, sees neither card meaning nor spread position as fixed but as flexible. And he always starts with the whole reading, not with single cards, i.e., his first approach is synthesis, not analysis. Analysis is the second step.
Goodreads reviews.
3. Lon Milo DuQuette, Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot
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I actually can't decide whether this book is better or Michael Osiris Snuffin's book about the Thoth. I take out this more often and enjoy his style a bit more but both books are good and I should make an in-depth comparison any day soon!
If you feel intimidated by the Thoth and have no idea where to start - start right here with DuQuette. He breaks down the esoteric background of the Thoth into chunks that you can understand and work with. You can use the book as entry course to Western the esoteric tradition, and you can use it as practical guide when stuck with a reading. It works well either way.
4. Alison Cross, A Year in the Wildwood
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Alison Cross is a great tarot writer, her Tarot Kaizen is such a wonderful book. She connects here the Wildwood with the Pagan cycle of the year. I don't celebrate the Pagan festivals but I'm fascinated by the cosmic aspects of it and think the connection between the Wildwood Tarot and the Wheel of the Year makes both come alive. I do my own tarot calendar work but I'm sure that if you love the imagery and world of the Wildwood, working a whole year with this book, the deck and the pagan calendar will deepen your spiritual connection to the world. (Goodreads reviews)
I didn't decide yet which will be the fifth book of this category... Dame Fortune's Wheel and Tarot of the Sephiroth and Star Tarot all have good books, and what about the Shadowscapes book... I'll decide this one later
and will also add links etc later. Wrote enough for now, my head hurts! and I have to re-read all these books now!!! If you want to add books - don't stick to the number Five, I just picked it to limit myself
