Tarot Reading Explained, Formerly Tarot Tells the Tale

Barleywine

Although I've been working with tarot for decades I still like to read selected beginner books to see what paths new seekers are being led down these days. Having a Kindle Fire provides a much less expensive and much more space-saving way to do this. Right now I'm reading James Ricklef's Tarot Reading Explained, which is the next incarnation of his earlier book, Tarot Tells the Tale (which is itself a reconstitution of a still-earlier work).

Especially in the beginning sections on numerology and elements in relation to the cards, I find myself nodding "Yes" to everything he says. His discussion of the court cards is also very well-reasoned and instructive. I'm less certain about his approach to the trumps, but it stands to reason since my own approach is a more esoteric one.

So far, I think I would recommend this book to any beginner. The other book that is well-aligned with Ricklef's viewpoint is Elizabeth Hazel's The Tarot Decoded. Together they will provide enough food for thought on numbers, elements (and in Hazels case, various forms of dignity) to occupy a novice for a long time.
 

Lee

I like Ricklef's book as well. I recently reread Tarot Tells the Tale (I tried to determine if there was enough new material to justify buying the new edition, I wasn't sure but it seemed perhaps not, so I didn't). It's a great way for beginners and also non-beginners to get inside a great reader's head and look at the mechanics of actually stringing cards together into a story, which is the heart of tarot reading.
 

Nightsky

This is one of my all time favorites. I especially like his system of interpreting reversals and then being able to see how reversals were interpreted in various readings. That alone was worth the purchase to me and there is so much more of value in the book.

This thread brought the book to mind again so I tried to compare the table of contents between the two editions. The titles of the reading case studies seem to be identical to me.