Your First Tarot Book(s)?

Teheuti

Tarot Unveiled: The Methods to it's Magic by Laura A Clarson
I liked this book. Very straightforward - good for learning. I believe that Anthony Louis' excellent Tarot book owes quite a bit to this one.
 

Ica'rus

My first was The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination by Robert Place. http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/history-symbolism-divination/

It is a fantastic and seemingly well researched look at the origins of Tarot to its spread in popularity, and how it ultimately managed to become consolidated in the modern era where we now know TdM, RWS, and Thoth as the primary styles.

What I love most about it is the detail. WHY each card features the symbolism and design that they do. How they came to be developed or changed. The original, historical meaning and modern. Being a very technical person, this detail helps me understand the core of the card and I believe helps me to understand their individual meaning, and the collective identity of Tarot itself.
 

EmpyreanKnight

My absolute first is the excellent companion book to my very first Tarot deck, the Mythic Tarot.

I was not very serious in learning the Tarot then though, so even though I kept on buying decks, I did not really purchase much in the way of books. It only changed recently, when I began my deep study of the Tarot.
 

devilkitty

Crowley's Book of Thoth, to go with the first deck I bought, that being a large Thoth in 1983.
(Yes, I threw myself into the deep end with a cast-iron life vest!)

Shortly thereafter I added Huson's The Devil's Picturebook.
 

rachelcat

Crowley's Book of Thoth, to go with the first deck I bought, that being a large Thoth in 1983. (Yes, I threw myself into the deep end with a cast-iron life vest!)
Definitely! You're a brave soul!

I thought I posted in this one, but I haven't yet, so here goes. In the pre-Amazon, pre-internet days, I had 3 books:

Pictorial Key. My reaction at the time: "What the heck!? I'm an English major--I KNOW I can read--but I'm having some trouble with this . . ."

Eileen Connolly's Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice. A good workbook that helped me start thinking for myself, not just memorizing meanings and reading pictures.

The Motherpeace Tarot Playbook. Opened the first drawer of tarot as the esoteric filing cabinet for me, for astrology and chakras, especially. Very helpful for a beginner. I still use some of its non-RWS interpretations regularly because they clicked with me back then.
 

MissChiff

Book of Thoth and deck....
 

Cocobird55

Joan Bunning's book. I still use it once in a while.

When I first started reading, Barnes and Noble offered an online course in Tarot. They used Bunning's book. It was a good class -- I wish they still did things like that.
 

dangerdork

Like several others here, my first was Eden Gray's "The Tarot Revealed"... there weren't many mainstream titles available back then, this was probably around 1974 for me. I'll add an endorsement for Anthony Lewis' "Tarot Plain and Simple"...it was my go-to title for years. One bonus for that one is that the illustrations are from the Robin Wood deck, which adds a little breadth beyond all the many titles that use RWS or Marseilles (Robin Wood is also a deck that reads incredibly well for me). Benibel Wen's new "Holistic Tarot," I've only skimmed but is quite good and looks to be a thorough and valuable resource.
 

Barleywine

Book of Thoth and deck....

Another brave soul . . . Although I had Eden Gray's books first, I never bought the RWS deck until some 40 years later. I bought the Thoth deck and the Book of Thoth almost immediately after Gray's books and didn't buy another deck or basic book for a very long time.
 

Morwenna

My firsts were a couple of Eden Gray's books, back in the '80s. (It all went downhill from there... :D You should see the pile since then!)