Tarot Fundamentals

Disclaimer: I kickstarted this book in 2015. Just after backing it, I became a staff writer for Lo Scarabeo. They are not paying me to write this.

Lo Scarabeo's Tarot Fundamentals is the first in a trilogy of books that uncovers the information they have gathered from 20+ years of publishing tarot decks. It's a collaborative effort written by many of the top authors in the tarot industry. This book's purpose was to be a cross between a lovely tarot coffee table book, with shiny pictures and a introduction to tarot, its uses and meanings. Tarot Fundamentals blends card meanings, card comparison, history, and a beginner's guide to working with tarot into one volume. In fact, I would go far as to call it a wonderful tarot textbook. The book has heft–it is over 600 pages long, glossy and full color pages–it contains wide margins, which gives me the impression that this book is to be used, highlighted, and written on.

What I liked: I liked the wide variety of topics contained in the text. It lends well to quick and easy reading despite the size. Even though some may seem like this is Lo Scarabeo's book to showcase various decks they've published over the years (it is, sort of), I liked the decks they included. An aspect of tarot study is to compare various decks and this book does that brilliantly. I also liked the way that this book introduces tarot history, repeating material in word as well as graphics. It accounts for the various ways of learning and I can see younger readers finding this a good resource.

What I didn't like: The book has a unique chart representation of the court cards and their relationship to one another. I'm calling this the Court Cards Quadrant. It has the power to be a powerful tool but as written it falls short of expectation. We get a short single paragraph introduction in the green pages. Then each court card gets it's unique chart and keywords in the pages that describe each card's meaning. However, the longer explanation on how to use it is hundreds of pages back in the Techniques section. I'd have preferred this little gem to be together in it's own article. It is introduced in one paragraph in the book's beginning, shown in visual and keyword format in each court card's description, and then explained how to use back in the Techniques section. There are also parts of the book where information is almost duplicated, and that space could have been saved for more meaty content. The scale of the book seems a bit larger than normal... many non-tarot images take up a huge amount of page real estate and the text is in large print.

Bottom Line: If you are looking for a tarot book that leads you through the mysteries of the card by hand, then this is your guide. I imagine that Tarot Fundamentals is the textbook Hogwarts uses in their Beginning to Tarot classes. As a seasoned reader, I did get a lot out of this book, so don't let the introductory tone fool you. There are some surprises in here.