Your First Tarot Book(s)?

Hi There!

Aside from the booklet that came w/ my PCS deck, I just got my first book on learning Tarot: "The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot Ever!!" x Dusty White. I'm loving it so much despite the really cheesy title. My favorite aspect of the book is it presents everything in a very informal and "light," humorous way while also encouraging a deeply intuitive, personal relationship w/ the cards...all before learning the textbook/traditional interpretations. I also really like the encouragement to question everything. Work with interpretations that feel right to you.

I was wondering what some of your first Tarot books were?

A few others I'm looking at for after I finish working through this:
"A Magical Course in Tarot" x Michele Morgan
"Tarot for Life" x Paul Quinn
"Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom" x Rachel Pollack
"Holistic Tarot" x Benebell Wenn

Mine was an Eden Gray book, but I don't remember which one, now. I do remember, since I was living with my parents and tarot was verboten, I hid the paperback in plain sight among my science fiction books by simply turning it around so the spine faced in (along with a few others so it wouldn't stick out). Kind of a sneaky Seven of Swords solution

Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom is the first one I remember reading. I'm not sure how much of it I took in the first time but I read it straight through from cover to cover. I was hooked as soon as I saw the title.

Eden Gray's The Tarot Revealed. Years later I got to sit at her feet and have her sign my copy of her first self-published edition. BTW, my favorite of her three books is Mastering the Tarot.

Eden Gray The Tarot Revealed also. It was a library castoff, so it's bound in this thick and heavy crayola colored cover.

I didn't really relate to my first book. It supported my decision to not like the RWS, as far as I can tell.
One book that I do really like is called "A Magical Course in Tarot" - it's all about boosting your intuition. You'll need that, even if you're a reader who goes off associations with numerology and astrology and all the rest. Otherwise you won't be able to sort through which meaning is appropriate for this particular situation.

Eden Gray's Complete Guide to Tarot. My mother gave me that and her unused University Press RWS deck. She created a monster.

avalonian said:

Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom is the first one I remember reading. I'm not sure how much of it I took in the first time but I read it straight through from cover to cover. I was hooked as soon as I saw the title.

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Same for me! I saw the book on sale - I remember the wonderful feeling when I bought it. I still like it although I'm a Thoth fan ;-) But the book made clear to me what the tarot is about, and I could build on that later.

Alfred Douglas: The Tarot. I now have TWO copies. LOVE it !

The first that I ever put my hands on was The Complete Illustrated Guide To Tarot by Rachel Pollack (ISBN 0517224100....out of print but you can find it for a couple cents on Amazo n). It had a heap of information, sort of a condensed version of 78 Degrees, but set up as a quick reference guide. The thing I loved about it was how easy the format was to use. The layout for the minors was especially clever- all the Aces together, all the twos together, all the Kings together, and so on. It also shows examples of a slew of decks aside from RWS and Thoth. Nifty thing. I still have it on my bookshelf.