10 LGBTQ+ Tarot Books That Deserve a Spot on Your Bookshelf

Whether you’re learning to read tarot for the first time or you’re a pro who's been practicing for many years, tarot books offer an opportunity to dive deeper into the meanings of the cards. While the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck (that's the popular 78-card deck you're probably picturing right now) shows gendered figures like the Emperor and the Empress and male/female couples like the Lovers, there’s no reason you have to interpret cards that way! In fact, many LGBTQ+ tarot readers have worked to expand the way we interpret the tarot.

In the foreword to the 2019 book Queering the Tarot by Cassandra Snow, tarot reader Beth Maiden writes, “A deck of tarot cards in the hands of a young queer is every bit as important and vital as an esteemed text in the queer canon—each and every time the deck is picked up and we lay out those familiar cards, it becomes a new story, its well-known symbols and archetypes ready to be reshaped to reflect our many and diverse lived realities.” And whichever tarot deck you’re working with, these tarot books from LGBTQ+ writers will help you explore new ways to understand the tarot.