Fans pick 100 books like Alchemy of a Blackbird

I had never been to The Cloisters here in Manhattan after many decades of living here, but I read Katy Hays's book, and had to visit it afterward. Hays’ book was a great pre-cursor to the trip to the Museum of Medieval and Early Renaissance Art.

I kept in mind the world of the fictional underdog, Anne Sitwell, who worked her way up to know there were secrets in the vault at the Cloisters. A Tarot Deck, possibly from the d’Este family in Italy, sets the stage for skullduggery while secrets and murders mount, leading to a plot twist at the end for our hapless Anne. It was interesting talking to the docent at the museum after I took a garden tour, and to spot a copy of this book for sale in the gift shop there.

I was intrigued by the magical abilities in the “Hands” of each one of the three protagonists in this book. Tamara uses her hands for tarot readings to tell people’s futures, while Phyllis’s hands have a super-power strength for knife-throwing, and Dev has “Saint’s Hands” have a sort of spidey-sense, helping his work as a police spy.

I was intrigued by Tamara’s tarot readings as part of this crime story, with the weaving in of black people’s stories of trauma, the double-edged sword of passing for white, and Juju assassins. This alternate history is a nebula of magic, criminals, and an exploration of how love heals people.

This book was the 2021 Winner of the World Fantasy Award. It was an unexpected winner, but I can see how Johnson’s gritty writing pulled people in. Trigger warning: if you have nerves about reading about knives as weapons, you may want to… show more.

I love this book; it is my all-time favorite nonfiction resource book for female tarot creators during the Victorian Age. I was totally absorbed reading about the art and artists that Mary Greer selected: Maud Gonne, Moina Bergson Mathers, Annie Horniman and Florence Farr.

These are four women who transformed the face of women in power in the occult and magical societies. I especially dote on a book with photographs and illustrations when talking about a historical topic, and there are fantastic images, many one-of-a-kinds, that are well-researched and noted. If you have any interest in tarot, female Magicians, and the struggles of these amazing Suffragettes and artists, this book is for you. 

I like the format of this book, where each chapter is titled after a Tarot card. The involves a manuscript from Cleopatra’s time with a seer named Ionna to our modern-day protagonist, Semele, who works in an auction house.

Ionna foresaw a sort of doomsday tarot deck throughout history and in this manuscript, which is now up for sale, named Semele in her prophecy. She has to track down the descendants of Ionna, who may have the key to where this tarot deck is, before the manuscript passes into the wrong hands.

While tarot isn’t the main focus of the book, the background research on tarot is fascinating.

My copy of this foremost biography of Remedios Varo is in tatters.

It covers Varo’s life from her childhood in Spain, her time in Paris with the surrealists, her flight from Paris and life in a safe house in Marseilles, and her escape from Vichy France to the haven of Mexico, her home for the remainder of her life.

Kaplan includes insights into Varo’s spiritual beliefs and practices, including the tarot. Filled with gorgeous reproductions of her paintings. 

Carrington’s surrealist masterpiece is a bit lighter than her other well-known novel, Down Below.

She tells the tale of someone not often seen, much less celebrated, in literature - the crone. At age 92, Marion Leatherby is given the gift of a hearing trumpet by her dear friend Carmella. It is only then she can hear that her family is planning on sending her to an institution.

Carrington’s fondness for the tarot (she even painted her own deck) can be found in the archetypal characters Leatherby encounters at the institution including the Abbess, the Snow Queen, and the Queen Bee among others.     

Guided Tarot is a how-to book for Tarot readings: how to lay out the cards and get some sense out of them. There’s more to Tarot than just memorizing the card meanings, and this book walks you through the process of developing your own card reading style. If you can’t figure out which spreads to use, or if you’re having trouble trusting your intuition and letting the reading flow, this book will take you through exercises to figure out the answers to those questions so you become a more powerful Tarot reader and can take the training wheels off, so to speak.

Witches everywhere are rejoicing the fact that Pamela Coleman Smith is finally being celebrated. If you don’t know (but I’m sure you do,) Coleman Smith illustrated the most iconic tarot deck that exists, which used to be referred to only as the Rider-Waite deck (Waite directed the project and Ryder was the company that published it). Now the decks are being renamed after their creator, a fascinating woman who went by “Pixie” and hung out with Bram Stoker and William Butler Yates. This book is the most beautiful tribute, thick with her illustrations and writings. A deep dive into the life of an important and most magical witch. 

Jessica Dore’s book is a revelation.

Coming from a psychological view of the cards, Dore incorporates ideas from different psychological schools of thought such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as well as Greek myth, Arthurian legend, folklore, fairy tales, and more.

Dore offers a unique, modern, and very personal approach to the cards and their meanings. A fascinating example for anyone building their own tarot practice and figuring out what tarot means to them on a personal and individual level.

When I started a serious study of Tarot, there were very few substantive books on the topic—and barely anything had been written about the history and scope of Tarot art. But, that changed dramatically when collector and publisher Stuart Kaplan began the Encyclopedia of Tarot; over the years between 1978 and 2005, the series grew to four volumes and 1,584 pages, documenting every Tarot deck he could find out about.

However, the first volume stands alone as a turning point in the modern history of Tarot. In almost 400 oversized pages, it discusses artifacts that range from 15th-century museum pieces to esoteric decks designed by 19th-century enthusiasts to hand-made creations of adventurous 20th-century artists. Most of the book’s pages display black-and-white photographs of cards from various decks, but there are also scholarly essays illuminating the many aspects of Tarot history and art.

Kaplan’s Encyclopedia encouraged me to take Tarot seriously,… show more.