My reviews of books on Tarot

This forum has been for me a great source of information and ideas concerning the Tarot. As a consequence (not that I'm blaming the forum, mind you), most of the books I have access to have remained unread. I'm starting this thread with the intention of placing short reviews of all the books on Tarot I can get my hands on. Of course, I'm going to read the books first In fact, this is what's this thread for: to motivate myself to read.

I'll place the author/title of the book I'm reading at any particular time in the list below. Subsequent posts will be devoted to reviews of the books I have listed.

I wonder how long I'll manage to stand by this little project of mine. Off we go!

1. Abraham, Sylvia "How to Read the Tarot"
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=3654205&postcount=3

2. Tyson, Donald "1-2-3 Tarot: Answers in an Instant"
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=3713383&postcount=6

majowy said:

1. Abraham, Sylvia "How to read the Tarot"

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UGH! I refer to this book as 'Insomniac's Delight' - dry, boring, dull beyond words ... I kept this in my trunk in case I got stuck somewhere and had to read something. Good luck with it. Another installment of Llewellyn's 'Bore a Book Reader to Death' series ...

1. Abraham, Sylvia "How to read the Tarot"

The contents of this book so far can be summarised in one word: keywords. That's what you get: keywords for each card. Unlike most such books, however, this one does not list the Major Arcana first, followed by the Minor Arcana. Instead, the link between the Majors and Minors is established right from the start. So, Aces are presented after the Magician, twos after the High Priestess, et cetera. I rather like this way of introducing the Tarot cards, since I personally tend to overlook the connection between Majors and their numerological counterparts in the Minor suits.

Keywords, or rather key sentences, are provided for the upright and reversed positions. Keywords for the reversed position are sometimes too schematic, e.g. 'I know how to manage my finances' for the upright position versus 'I don't know how to manage my finances' for the reversed position.

If you are looking for a book on Tarot symbolism and an in-depth treatment of each card, this is not a book for you. What you get is essentially a list of keywords/key sentences. I would describe this book as a general-purpose LWB.

to be continued

tarotbear said:

UGH! I refer to this book as 'Insomniac's Delight' - dry, boring, dull beyond words ... I kept this in my trunk in case I got stuck somewhere and had to read something. Good luck with it. Another installment of Llewellyn's 'Bore a Book Reader to Death' series ...

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Thanks for visiting my thread! Well, given that the book is basically a collection of keywords, it can't be particularly exciting. A quick reference guide for beginners.

This book was given to me to learn Tarot. I found it to be straight to the point (indeed dry) and covered all a beginner needs to know about getting a basic knowledge and feel for the cards. I have found the Key words to be very helpful. I would recommend it for any beginner.

2. Tyson, Donald , "1-2-3 Tarot: Answers in an Instant"

Although this book presents a very specific technique of Tarot reading, it can be used by absolute beginners. The author does not discuss history, elements of astrology, numerology, etc. The entire book is devoted to a technique based on three-card sequences that can be used as a separate spread or as part of larger spreads. The first position in a triplet roughly corresponds to a noun (who or what), the second one to a verb (does what), and the third to an adverb (how). So, for a sequence of 3 cards you generate a sentence consisting of 3 words, which next can be developed into a paragraph.

The author gives a short description of each Tarot card and a list of general keywords. Next he offers words/sentences to be used in each of the 3 positions in the triplet (upright and reversed). Basically, that's it.

At the end of the book, there is a chart providing one keyword for every card in each of the triplet positions (again, for upright and reversed cards, so in effect we get 2 keywords for each position, and 6 keywords for each card). There is a short glossary of Tarot terms.

In addition to the discussion of the 1-2-3 method, there are some useful hints on interpreting the spacial orientation of court cards: cards facing the left or the right, turned towards each other or away from each other, upright or reversed.

I have to say I did not find the specimen readings provided by the author very convincing. However, the readings I did here in the Reading Exchanges thread using the 1-2-3 technique worked quite well, so I think the method is worth a try.

Marcus R said:

This book was given to me to learn Tarot. I found it to be straight to the point (indeed dry) and covered all a beginner needs to know about getting a basic knowledge and feel for the cards. I have found the Key words to be very helpful. I would recommend it for any beginner.

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Thank you for visiting this thread and for your opinion.