I just read two new tarot books - "Beyond The Celtic Cross" by Paul Huges Barlow and Catherine Chapman (excellent!) and "The Street Smart Psychics Guide To Getting A Good Reading" by Lisa Barretta (had some issues with this one).  Any other new books out that you've been reading?

Discuss....

I just finished Valerie Sims "Tarot Outside The Box". I enjoyed it immensly, well written and entertaining. The Appendix has a Collaborative Story written by about 30 members of the Comparative Tarot e-list. That was just very cool, about a cat who is also a tarot artist.

Chapter 3 is entitled "Reading Practice Without A Querent" and has a number of effective and entertaining ways to keep your intuition tunned during dry spells client wise.

It was a good read. A book you can run through in 2 days 3 days max.

Thanks Tiki. I will have to check those out...

This Book by Sim is one in a series of books that is known as "Special Topics in Tarot". Thus far I have been impressed with the selection of writings in this series. They Include:

"Past Life and Karmic Tarot" by Edain McCoy
"The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals" by Mary Greer
"Tarot and Dream Interpatations" by Julie Gillentine
"Designing Your Own Tarot Spreads" by Teresa Michelson
"Tarot & Magic" by Donald Micheal Kraig
"Understanding The Tarot Court" by Mary Greer
"Tarot Tips" by Ruth Ann & Wald Amberstone
"Tarot for Self Discovery" by Nina Lee Brown

This series of books are for what I personally would call "intermediate-level" students of Tarot, though even advanced Tarot students will find them usefull.  If you are looking for the standard rehashed "Cookbooks" of Tarot, these probably will not be for you. I do not say this as an elitist. Natalia has the tendency to be the "Tarot Snob", lol, not me! Life is a river and the rapids can claim anyone anytime.

I just wanted to jump in and throw a thought into the discussion. Any of these books in this series are worthy of reading and adding to a Tarot Library.

Hi Capricornscorpio,

While I thought the book had some good info and valid points, the "psychic junkie" tone was a turnoff for me.  I don't like promoting that behavior and I thought the book seemed to condone it.  That's my main issue with it.  I also thought it could have been edited down a bit.  

Thank you for your reply. Valid points, although I disagree with your comment about the book condoning psychic junkie-ism. If anything, I think the author tries to steer her readers away from  that path, all while providing examples and anecdotes. (I know from this point forward, I don't ever want to be the type of client who becomes co-dependent on receiving a reading every 12 hours!) What I took from the book are: 1) lessons for those who are on the receiving end of the reading (whether it's their 1st or 21st time); 2) what the tarot reader experiences from the other side of the cards; 3) the author's own personal experiences as a reader/client. As someone who is still "green" to all of this, I liked exploring both the client's and reader's perspectives.

And while the book is shy of 300 pages, it was a rather easy read for me. (I read it while I was sick with the flu one weekend, and it really helped the time go by.) As I mentioned in my previous post, the author's style resonated with me.

Cheers.