Tarot cards have intrigued me every since I've seen a deck. They're so pretty and mysterious and so different, yet so closely related in look to our familiar playing cards, and so many of the decks are rich in symbolism. I started collecting decks, and even reading them for friends for fun, even though I'm a thorough-going rationalist and don't believe they can be tools of divination. This was my first tarot book and the one that taught me to do readings (which I did during lunch in my Catholic School until one of the nuns told me not to do that again since tarot cards are "tools of Satan.")

The introduction unfortunately perpetuates the myth that the cards are associated with the gypsies--they're not--the cards were known in Europe for almost a century before Gypsies entered the population in any numbers. That said, it explains the purported meanings in ways that make them easy to remember, and I liked it offered more than the standard Celtic Cross Spread. There's also two three-card spreads, a six card "Hungarian Method," and a "Horoscope" and "Solar Chart" Method. ( )