Sarah Bartlett

Iconic Tarot Decks by Sarah Bartlett
The History, Symbolism and Design of Over 50 Decks

Beautiful, informative, and filled with information ~ I found this book a delight to flip through and then spend time with. For someone wanting a brief introduction to a variety of historical and more current tarot decks, this was a treasure trove of information and a visual feast.

What I liked:
* The variety and number of decks shared
* The information about the decks including the history, who created them and their purposes
* That there was some information on how to use the decks for personal divinatory purposes
* Pondering what the cards might mean to me were I to use them
* The look into the history of tarot cards
* The various reasons the cards were decorated as they were
* Finding out who some of the artists of tarot cards were
* Wanting to find a few of the decks to add to my personal collection…need to write those down
* Being reminded of my thought of one day creating a personal deck of my own
* That there was not too much information to bog down the book

What I didn’t like:
* Can’t think of anything ;)

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I buy it for myself or someone else? I might

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing – White Lion for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars… (mais)

it was ok!

it really is all about spells and rituals from around the world. jewish, ancient roman, south east asian / hindu, feng shui, omg, all the things.

i don't really like to appropriate other culture's spells or sacred rituals. colonialism often prevented people from performing these sacred rights or rituals, and so to do those rituals again as a white person would be committing harm.

it was interesting to see how many different cultural practices there were, and to learn about them, but again, i don't want to use them in my own personal practice. the one thing i really did like was the length of the spells - many of these have to be done on a specific day with 3 weeks or 1 month of passive work after that, so that appealed to me.

in terms of my own spell writing it's been really helpful and interesting but i didn't feel a connection to a lot of the spells in here. the 'love' section of the book is predictably heteronormative and not at all my own personal approach.

despite its beautiful publication and execution, this is just not for me, i don't think. oh well! onto the next.… (mais)