What Are You Currently Reading?

MaeWasteland

In the evenings, just before bed (and in the mornings, if I feel up to it) I'm trying to do a little bit each night of the exercises in Tarot 101 (Huggens), currently I'm doing a week of the Daily Draw exercise, although this morning I only had enough energy to shuffle and select a card, didn't manage to have a proper think/write about it. On the PC I'm reading the Kindle version of A Magical Course in Tarot (Morgan) in little bits through the day.
 

treelet

I just finished Holistic Tarot (which now looks like an old college textbook, underlined and bookmarked to death) and have started Tarot for Your Self by Mary K. Greer. Really looking forward to it as I love the idea having a practical workbook to reflect on, in addition to my regular journal.
 

JylliM

Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom. Got it in the mail on Friday and taking it slowly. Love it.
 

Barleywine

Anthony Louis, Tarot Beyond the Basics

Pretty good overall, but I find some of his flippant, wise-ass remarks about aspects of the "tradition" he has no use for rather annoying. For example, he spends half of one chapter ridiculing the Golden Dawn and Crowley, and the second half extolling the virtues of using the sephirotic and numerological model for understanding the pip cards. Just a little schizophrenic in my book. While some of the 19th century correlations may be of spurious origin (I'm thinking 22 Hebrew letter, 22 Major Arcana cards), quite a few very good minds were applied in a serious attempt to fashion a syncretic system of correspondences. In practice, it can be very useful stuff.
 

Nemia

Anthony Louis, The Fool's Journey Around the Zodiac

I just finished reading it on my kindle. It's available for free in the kindle unlimited basket, but I decided to buy it because I found it useful.

This is a very nice and handy summary of the decan system, and I like that it doesn't pretend to do anything else. It's easy to use for a study of the Thoth, especially the minors.

I went one by one through the zodiac (which I have done many times before, I love playing with my Thoth and sorting it according to planets, colors, symbols etc) and had a good look at the cards associated directly or indirectly with one sign after the other, majors and minors and the court cards ruling the decan. I tried myself to find the common denominators and the individual traits of each card. Then I read it up in the book.

The book makes it easy because it also adds the tree of life influences, including the planets.

Altogether, this gives each card a very complex character - different energies are present, some are felt quite easily, others just appears as planetary or elementary echo. Even though I felt that I know the Thoth quite well, it was a good exercise to go through the book sign by sign and concentrate on that aspect.

I don't think one book is enough to understand the complex relationship and associations between kabbalah, astrology and tarot, and this book wouldn't be enough either. But while most other books go through the deck card by card, this one is organized sign by sign which makes the information easily accessible.

Louis doesn't write for a specific deck; I just found his approach suited the Thoth very well, but his interpretations would also help get an additional aspect in RWS studies, and I will do the same exercise with my Commemorative deck soon.

My copy is already annotated which is always a good sign. (My most annotated book is probably Benebell Wen's Holistic Tarot ;-) ) Over time, I'm sure I will add to these annotations.
 

daphne

Anthony Louis, The Fool's Journey Around the Zodiac

I just finished reading it on my kindle. It's available for free in the kindle unlimited basket, but I decided to buy it because I found it useful.


I like your review about this book, sounds interesting and I like his style anyway. I looked for it, but it seems to be only in kindle version, no paperback, which I prefer. Where did you buy the paperbook from?
 

Nemia

I bought it for the kindle (kindle unlimited is borrowing). It's an e-book, I think.
 

Grizabella

This isn't Tarot, but I've been reading The Essential Lenormand by Rana George. It's a wonderful book.

I've also been delving into Tarot Beyond the Basics.
 

crystalrose

I'm slowing working my way through Understanding the Tarot Court & 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card, both by Mary Greer. Although I'm enjoying both, I think I like The Tarot Court slightly more b/c it's pretty informative.
 

Cocobird55

Tarot Fundamentals

I'm reading Tarot Fundamentals -- the first volume of the Lo Scarabeo Encyclopedia. There is so much in it -- I will probably read one topic a day. It's very nice.