The Aquarian deck is, I think, an excellent choice for a beginner's deck - just enough detail to be meaningful without too much clutter or extraneous detail. I also find it has a quiet yet deep energy which many respond to when doing readings for others.
other books that come to mind that use the aquarian
Funny this should come up ... I recently reconnected with the Aquarian Tarot after finding a gorgeous, very gently used vintage copy on eBay a couple of months ago dating from the mid-80s (= no US Games copyright on the cards, which distracts me) and find that I've been using it more frequently than anything else in my collection. The softness and "aloofness" which others here have mentioned are what really draw me in.
But I think the main reason why I'm attracted to the deck is due to a memory I have of a book that started my interest in Tarot almost forty years ago which I checked it out of the library when I was maybe 10 or 11 (what can I say; I was a precocious and weird kid). It was sort of a primer on various divination methods - Tarot, astrology, palmistry, even tea leaf reading if I remember correctly - and the Tarot section was illustrated with cards from the Aquarian deck. They were likely the first Tarot cards I ever saw and I guess they "imprinted" upon me what Tarot cards "should" look like, because I've never found a deck that's attracted me as much since.
A few years after that in high school I ended up buying a standard Rider Waite deck because that's all that was available in the bookshop near where we lived. But I always had the Aquarian deck in my mind, so am glad to finally be using it on a regular basis and getting to know it better.
The best resource for the Aquarian deck is Criag Junjulas's "Psychic Tarot" (out of print now, but easy enough to find used copies of online - you can also purchase and download a PDF copy from the author's website), and I've reread it frequently after acquiring my own copy of the deck.
But I'd still love to know the title of the book which sparked my interest all those many years ago. I've gone down several rabbit holes over the years looking for it on eBay and in used bookshops without success, though I'm sure it will find me when the time comes
If it sounds familiar to anyone, please let me know!