The tarot is misunderstood to be a frivolous science, when in fact learning tarot is a lifelong, personal journey through the wisdom of the ages, aka history, religion, mythology, symbolism, and much more, making reading basically essential to learning tarot (after all, this is tarot reading). As a tarot reader, I am continually seeking new ways to educate myself on the foundations of tarot, divination, and reading. To do this, I have sought many books about tarot to deepen my practice and understanding of tarot and my own spirituality and worldview.
My list of the 15 best tarot books range from beginner to advanced level of tarot reading and are hand-picked from my personal experience. These aren’t simply the only 15 books I own on tarot—I have way more in my tarot library, which is why these 15 best tarot books have truly been tested, with cracked spines and well-thumbed pages. Some of these books are eclectic, but all of them have helped enrich my tarot reading. These 15 best tarot books, with 5 books for each level of readers, will help you start reading and progress to a deeper relationship with tarot cards and the tarot system. (Plus: if you like this post, you’ll definitely want to check out my list of the 15 best advanced tarot books for experienced readers.)
And if you’re looking to learn about numerology, read my list of the 10 best numerology books:
Plus my best books for palm reading:
And now onto the list of the best tarot books!
The 5 Best Tarot Books for Beginner Readers
The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot—Ever!! by Dusty White
I wish I had this book when I was a beginning tarot reader. Author Dusty White subverts conventional tarot books by setting beginning readers off on a deeply personal journey with the cards. With his trademark witty, brash, and confessional style, Dusty White gives a no-bullshit approach to learning tarot, dispelling the myths and tired old advice that gets recycled again and again. Despite its clickbait-y title (two exclamation points!!), in The Easiest Way to Learn Tarot—Ever!!, White includes exercises that help you deepen your relationship with the cards in an immediate way, through worksheets and activities. It’s a fun way to learn tarot, and a method that helps you develop skills for creating a system of meanings that is tailored to your unique instincts and intuition. This is simply an outstanding book.
- Add The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot—Ever!! on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings by Brigit Esselmont
I was fortunate to discover Brigit Esselmont’s The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meaning almost immediately after I started reading tarot. This massive book is probably the most comprehensive tarot meaning book you will ever find. Brigit breaks each of the 78 cards—with reversal explanations that aren’t an afterthought—and even includes information about each card as it relates to specific categories like “Career, Work and Finance” and “Relationships and Love.” I have personally worked with Brigit before when I took a few of her courses and read for her free tarot reading network for close to two years. She knows her stuff, and she really cares about creating thorough and comprehensive and still accessible style. You will return to this book over and over and find something new. It’s my tarot meaning bible.
- Add The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat. Brigit also has a Tarot Card Meanings Workbook to accompany the Ultimate Guide. Purchase it on Amazon here.
Tarot for Your Self by Mary K. Greer
I’ve included four books by Mary K. Greer in this list because she is a legend who has earned her place as a master tarot teacher. Tarot for Your Self is an excellent introduction to tarot reading with a focus on developing a personal experience with the cards. I think Tarot for Your Self is your best first workbook for understanding the tarot through a spiritual (not religious), individualized way. Through exercises designed to get you reading immediately without fear, Tarot for Your Self dispels the common myth that you shouldn’t read tarot for yourself and argues why your relationship with the tarot is the most significant one you’ll cultivate.
- Add Tarot for Your Self on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
365 Tarot Spreads: Revealing the Magic in Each Day by Sasha Graham
Everyone needs a good tarot card spread book. Personally, I find playing around with different spreads to be one of the most fun parts about tarot reading. Tarot spreads are infinitely adaptable to any situation. To help you get in the groove of reading with spreads, try Sasha Graham’s 365 Tarot Spreads: Revealing the Magic in Every Day, which is exactly what it sounds like: a tarot spread for each day of the year. Now, some of these spreads won’t be applicable to you any day of every year, but you will always find something that fits your question, or a new spread to do for kicks if you’re bored. Graham is a master spread writer, so you’ll also learn about how different positions can be combined to tell a story—which, after all, reading tarot is about telling a story. Her thoughtful spreads are built on thoughtful flows and sequences for spreads that will yield a unified story and holistic reading.
- Add 365 Tarot Spreads: Revealing the Magic in Every Day on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card by Mary K. Greer
Now, as much as I advocate The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings and other books that claim they have the final word on tarot meanings, the truth is if you want to get from reading tarot with a book in your hand, consulting each card’s entry and flipping back and forth to find the keywords for the Four of Swords and the Wheel of Fortune, reading tarot intuitively is about more than memorizing someone else’s definition of card meanings. Reading tarot on your own, breaking away from the books, is a scary experience. You kind of feel like you’re a pilot flying your first plane. What if you don’t remember what a card means in reverse? What if you draw the Seven of Cups and just plain go blank? To get you to a confident place, read Mary K. Greer’s 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card, an excellent book that helps you build your confidence to read on your own without the aid of a manual or guide. Through Mary K. Greer’s 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card, you’ll be reading on your own in no time after internalizing her 21 different methods to read a card. This is a great way to learn how to read in the moment and get to the point where you can give a reading to someone (or yourself) without being tied to the book but instead reading in the moment as the cards speak to you. It’s about being present and open to the messages flowing through the cards you draw. This should be your ultimate goal to pass from beginner into more intermediate tarot card reading.
- Add 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
The 5 Best Tarot Books for Intermediate Readers
Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self through the Wisdom of the Cards by Michelle Tea
This book is pretty recent to me, but it’s already made an impact on the way that I understand the tarot system. As you’ll find in your tarot journey, there’s often a line between people who come down hard on tradition and people who look at tarot in an almost reform way. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important to internalize the traditional meanings most closely associated with the Rider-Waite deck, but we also need to recognize that the world is evolving, and that the tarot system should be fluid and adaptable to those changes. Okay, now that I’ve ranted away about this, I want to call your attention to a great book for intermediate tarot readers: Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self through the Wisdom of the Cards by Michelle Tea. This book updates your stuffy keyword-based “little white book” that comes with your Rider-Waite deck and reinterprets them for modern times. Michelle Tea is a writer of a broad range of writing, including poetry, fiction, and memoir, and she brings an eclectic set of references to her book. Michelle Tea’s frank and honest tone makes it feel like you’re sitting down with an old friend doing your cards late into the night, and I totally appreciate how she is able to create that intimate, confessional feeling through the pages of her book. I bought Modern Tarot when I was recently getting back into tarot again and wanted to kickstart my journey by seeing the meanings I had learned when I was first starting out in a new light. It’s been a great companion since.
- Add Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self through the Wisdom of the Cards on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
Tarot Interactions: Become More Intuitive, Psychic & Skilled at Reading Cards by Deborah Lipp
As you travel further down your tarot journey, you’ll go from reading from card to card in a spread to reading a whole spread as one continuous story. The way to get there is following the connections between cards. Unless you’re doing a one-card spread, no card exists in isolation but is instead interacting with other cards in the spread, such as to the immediate left or right, and then further along, from the first card to the last card. Deborah Lipp’s Tarot Interactions is a superb, thorough, and accessible guide to reading interactions between tarot cards. If you’ve ever wondered what could possibly connect two cards—say the Death card and an opposite, like the Universe—Deborah Lipp will help you do it confidently and comfortably. Adding some tarot interaction interpretation skills to your tarot practice is definitely a way to level up your tarot game and give great readings that truly tell captivating and immediate stories.
- Add Tarot Interactions on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
Understanding the Tarot Court and The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals by Mary K. Greer
You know I wouldn’t curate a list of books and have a majority of them be from the same author unless the author was exceptional, and that’s exactly why I’ve included two more books by master teacher Mary K. Greer. Undoubtedly two of the most challenging parts of reading tarot are the court cards and tarot reversals. With both of these books, Mary K. Greer has got you covered.
Understanding the Tarot Court will help you move from a beginner to intermediate tarot reader by immersing you in the court cards for each of the four suits of the Minor Arcana. I admit the court cards have always challenged me—it’s a knight riding on a horse… and that’s it??—so Greer, who co-wrote this book with Tom Little, patiently gives a rigorous look at the court cards so they stop seeming so interchangeable. Once you can temper out the meaning for the Page of Wands on demand, you know you’re really coming into a closer relationship with the cards.
Greer’s The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals will calm your nerves if you’re as intimidated by reading tarot reversals as most people are. With systematic precision, Greer goes in depth into the theory behind reversals and provides interpretations for every card in the deck when it appears in reverse modes. Of course, you might decide not to read with reversals at all, or do so on a case-by-case basis, and that’s totally fine. Whatever your personal philosophy on reading reversals, Mary K. Greer’s definitive book about tarot reversals will ground your choices in theory, method, and practice.
- Add Understanding the Tarot Court on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
- Add The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack
Oh, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. It won’t be long before you’re researching the best tarot books and you’ll come across Rachel Pollack’s work, and for good reason. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom is a great place to start with Pollack’s teachings and with going further with your tarot practice. Essentially, this classic is a workbook to help you develop a relationship with your cards and your own spiritual side by way of a detailed look at the symbolism, history, mythology, philosophy, legend, and lore around each card. If you want to reach back far far far into the long tradition of tarot, the esoteric arts, and ancient spirituality, Rachel Pollack’s Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom will guide you along that journey. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom is the book I’d recommend for intermediate readers who want to push themselves further in their study of the tarot and enter into an advanced tarot practice.
- Add Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
The 5 Best Tarot Books for Advanced Readers (find 10 more advanced tarot books in my other list on the blog)
Advanced Tarot Secrets by Dusty White
And we’re back to Dusty White! Advanced Tarot Secrets, his follow up to The Easiest Way to Learn Tarot—Ever!!, plugged above, is absolutely a remarkable book about tarot. I was really blown away, which was silly because The Easiest Way to Learn Tarot—Ever!! was really great. Well, Advanced Tarot Secrets definitely kicks your tarot game up a notch. Fair warning: this book is tough work. Some of the activities and exercises (or “games” as he calls them) that Dusty asks you to do will pull a lot out of you spiritually, mentally, intuitively… but you’ll be better off for it because you’ll have really earned your total understanding of tarot. Dusty covers topics like advanced theory behind spread reading and creation, using tarot for manifestation, and reading the far distant past and future with tarot. I remember reading Advanced Tarot Secrets and thinking this is the best tarot book I’ve ever read, and if that’s not my highest endorsement, I don’t know what is.
- Add Advanced Tarot Secrets on Goodreads or purchase it on Amazon (contact your local librarian for Advanced Tarot Secrets… it’s not WorldCat).
Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth by Benebell Wen
I remember when I first discovered this book in Barnes and Noble I sat right down and paged through it for twenty minutes. Wow, I thought. Benebell Wen’s Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth is as dense as tarot itself, covering beginning topics like picking out your deck as well as intermediate and advanced subjects, like spread casting and design, handling special considerations in reading for other people, ruminations, tarot and meditation, and using tarot to building resilience. For anyone who feels like they’ve reached a wall with their tarot reading practice, Holistic Tarot will absolutely teach tarot readers who have been at it for decades. This is definitely a book you will return to again and again.
- Add Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
Tarot Beyond the Basics: Gain a Deeper Understanding of the Meanings Behind the Cards by Anthony Louis
Soak up some wisdom from Anthony Louis in Tarot Beyond the Basics. Appropriate for intermediate and advanced tarot readers, this book will deepen your relationship with tarot. One thing that makes this book unique is that Louis doesn’t try to cover every advanced topic in tarot but does lend a special focus on his areas of expertise, specifically numerology and numeric symbolism, tarot and the elements, court card personalities, anatomy (!), intuition, astrology, and advanced considerations for the Celtic Cross spread. Tarot Beyond the Basics will lend new insights to cards that you might think you know everything there is to know. If you feel like you’re simply going through the motions of your readings, reach deeper with Tarot Beyond the Basics.
- Add Tarot Beyond the Basics on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
Tarot and the Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols
I was beyond lucky to scoop up a copy of Tarot and the Archetypal Journey: The Jungian Path from Darkness to Light by Sallie Nichols at a used bookstore a few years ago. In case you didn’t know, influential 20th century psychologist Carl Jung was extremely interested in tarot and their connection to archetypes. Jung was obsessed with the connection between dreams and the subconscious to archetypes, symbolism, and the oldest mythologies, stories, and iconic figures and conflicts. Sallie Nichols discusses this topic at length in what could be considered an advanced graduate seminar on psychology, symbolism, and tarot.
- Add Tarot and the Archetypal Journey on Goodreads, purchase it on Amazon, or borrow from your local library through WorldCat.
Tarot and Astrology: Enhance Your Readings with the Wisdom of the Zodiac by Corrine Kenner
Tarot and astrology are intrinsically linked, and it’s actually really cool to study how these two tools of divination connect. Although I am more of a tarot reader than an astrologer, I understand the importance of finding the ways these two fields overlap. Corrine Kenner’s Tarot and Astrology: Enhance Your Readings with the Wisdom of the Zodiac is a great place to begin your studies of the tarot and astrology. In clear prose with ample examples, Kenner will take the fear out of applying astrological principles to your tarot reading. This is truly one of those topics where you could spend a lifetime specializing in just the study of advanced tarot and astrology, but Kenner helps you start that journey by discussing beginning, intermediate, and advanced topics, like the planets, horoscope signs, and reading a horoscope spread or chart with tarot fundamentals.
