Tarot Books For Beginners?

I like the Idiot's guide and now use it as a reference. 21 Ways is excelent, but I could not use it until I'd worked with Dusty's book and forum for a while, that has made it so I now can understand other books. I think of myself as tarot LD, LOL.

I also recommend "Learning The Tarot" by Joan Bunning. It's a great resource for non beginners also!

Kreative-Dragon said:

As funny as it sounds, I loved The Idiots Guide to Tarot. Easy explanations, tonnes of entertaining info, and lots of training and experiments to use.

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I second this. I always recommend this one. It gives you a good foundation in Tarot, and adds small amounts of numerology, astrology, color, etc. Enough to get your feet wet, and if using those works for you it's a good jump start. The most important thing I learned from this book was to LOOK at the cards...LOL.

Tarot for Life~ by Paul Quinn
Tarot Masterclass~ by Paul Fenton-Smith
Tarot Your Everyday Guide~ by Janina Renee

These 3 are probably my favorites out of the 150 or so tarot related books I own.
And the Robin Wood book is wonderful if you have that deck.

Thanks for those suggestions too. Looks like I have a wide range to choose from.

I thought I would mention that I have been reading tarot for over a decade and have just purchased my first 'tarot book'.
Its Tarot for yourself, by Mary K Greer. I'm working through it, (its a work book) and I love it.

I would have loved to have it as a beginner, but its working really well as someone who has read for a long time as well. Its opening up new perspectives for me.

Maybe its work looking at for yourself.... I certainly recommend it

I'm looking through her blog now. It's very good.

Sulis said:

I really don't like Joan Bunning's book at all but that's because it's way teaching just didn't work for me (although it does for many people). I got it when I first started learning tarot and worked my way through the whole thing learning her keywords... The thing is she doesn't give an explanation as to how she got the keywords and so there is no system apart from learning parrot fashion keywords. It took me an absolute age to unlearn those keywords.

I like books that show you how to actually read the symbolism, the numbers and the elements on the cards rather than just giving you a bunch of meanings.
A good book that shows you how to come up with meanings rather than learning the meanings provided by the book author is The Complete Tarot Reader by Teresa Michelsen (click)
Another good one that will show you how to read rather than how to remember keywords is 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card by Mary K Greer (click).
There's even a study group for the Mary Greer book here on Aeclectic: Click here.

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I see where you're coming from, though I was very happy with the Bunning book myself. As I have said elsewhere, I have a warm spot in my heart for memorization. I got the Bunning book BECAUSE I had read it online before, It was the one book familiar to me in stores when i came to America later, and I wanted to buy something I was sure of.

I read the book and read the cards, copying down things in my journal. I also listened to a lot of tarot podcasts, Especially Ginny Hunt and Bonnie Cehovet. Somewhere along the line, i realized that I could feel my way around the rest of the cards from the things I'd already memorized, and everything just clicked.

Having a framework made it easier for me to fit concepts into something later.

Meanwhile, I am hot to get "21 Ways" now myself. I wasn't thrilled with what I heard of Dusty White's book via his podcast--it just wasn't for me at that time--but he has some lines that still make me chuckle.

I collect tarot books almost as much as tarot decks, and I have a new favorite beginners book to recommend. It's called "The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot - Ever!" by Dusty White. http://www.amazon.com/Easiest-Way-L...2887/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312004675&sr=8-1

This is the book I wish I had when first starting with tarot. I particularly like the exercises that help you learn the cards and how to read them. They're really more like games you play with the cards. Anyway, I'm really enjoying this book and the exercises.

I've seen that one too. I think you can only get it from Amazon.