The Only (Or Most Treasured) Books On Your Tarot Shelf

[Carla]

Over the years, I've read a great many books about tarot, but only a few of them have I actually kept. For those who use the same technique of keeping the collection pared down to only the ones that for you have been the best, what is on your tarot shelf?  ETA: Or, if you are someone who keeps everything, which books, in all honesty, are the ones that had the greatest impact on you and are your most treasured? 

 

My shelf contains (ie, these are the ones I kept because they are my most treasured): 

 

Ben-Dov, Yoav. The Open Reading. CreateSpace, 2011. 

Calvino, Italo. The Castle of Cross Destinies. Translated from the Italian by William Weaver. Vintage Classics: London, 1998. 

Crowley, Aleister. The Book of Thoth. Originally published in a edition limited to 200 copies, 1944. My edition published by Noble Offset Printers: New York, 1980. 

DuQuette, Lon Milo. Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot. Red Wheel/Weiser: San Francisco, 2003.

Elias, Camelia. Marseille Tarot: Towards the Art of Reading. Eye Corner Press, 2015. 

Elias, Camelia. The Oracle Travels Light: Principles of Magic with Cards. Eye Corner Press, 2015. 

Gilchrist, Cherry. Tarot Triumphs: Introducing the Fool's Mirror. Weiser Books: Newberry Port, 2016. 

Pollack, Rachel. Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot. Element: London, 1997. 

Pollack, Rachel. The Forest of Souls: A Walk Through the Tarot. Llewellyn, 2002. 

Pollack, Rachel. Tarot Wisdom: Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings. Llwellyn, 2011. 

Wen, Benebell. Holistic Tarot. North Atlantic Books: Berkeley, 2015. 

 

And for Lenormand: 

Boroveshengra, Andy. Lenormand Thirty-six Cards: An Introduction to the Petit Lenormand. 2nd ed, 2015. 

 

Ben-Dov I have kept because it is the first book about Tarot de Marseille that held any interest for me, and it was his deck that gave me a way in to TdM after years of fully illustrated decks made me prejudiced against the art and style of TdM. 

 

Calvino is a tour de force in creating story from cards. 

 

I've kept Crowley as a historic document, and DuQuette as the key I used to at least gain entry to Thoth, even though I have since stopped using that deck. 

 

Elias, along with Enrique Enriquez, has transformed the way I view tarot and the way I read cards. I will likely add more Elias works to my collection. 

 

Gilchrist was my next book after Ben-Dov, and continued my first forays into TdM. 

 

Pollack helped me understand how tarot imagery can embody the smallest to the largest aspect of life and meaning. 

 

Wen conveniently created a big honking grimoire of now-conventional esoteric tarot baggage. If I want to jog my memory about any of that, it's all-in-one. (Even though I now agree wholeheartedly with Enriquez's assessment that all this keeps tarot in an occult prison .) 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Carla

[Arania]

Pollack, Rachel. Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot.

 

This in German is about the only book I read through as a teenager, to get the symbolism even though cards move for me, and traditional meanings mean little. It helped me a lot.

 

Later I read through the book for the Haindl Tarot, which is great,too. I do own the book for the Aura Soma Tarot, but that is not something to read through. I look up card symbolism sometimes when reading with them.

[Rodney]

I have 758 tarot books and 190 oracle books. I have an "If all hell breaks loose and I need to leave fast" box. The only book that's in among the decks is a University Books Pictorial Key with Color Plates. The book I keep at my desk as a handy reference is Anthony Louis' Tarot Plain and Simple.