Andrea Richards

Astrology is the second volume in Taschen’s Library of Esoterica series. I’m pleased to say it’s as beautiful as Tarot, and much better edited, and displeased to say that it’s still pretty poorly edited.

First, the good. Obviously, it is visually stunning: 500-odd pages of astrological and astronomical artwork spanning 20,000 years. The book focuses on Western astrology but even these constraints still allow for illustrations from cave paintings, Egyptian tomb reliefs, Persian manuscripts, German woodcuts, Italian frescoes, Parisian couture, oracle decks, and modern kitsch (think collectible zodiac trading cards included in cigarette boxes). In other words, its a fascinating selection of genres, media, styles, color schemes, and time periods.

Some of the featured art and artists were familiar to me: the Dendera zodiac, Edmund Dulac, David Palladini, and the Voynich manuscript, to name a few. Others were completely new, and of them Maria Grazia Chiuri, Daria Hlazatova and Caroline Smith became immediate favorites, and Manzel Bowman’s Lux is forevermore my headcanon Discworld Death.

The text is also quite good. The book opens with a history of Western astrology, followed by chapters on the nine planets and 12 zodiac signs, and concludes with an introduction to houses and aspects. These sections are generally well written and the captions make more of an effort to comment on aspects of the illustrations than do the boilerplate captions in Tarot.

Now, the bad. Again, while this book is better edited than Tarot, it’s still not edited well. Commas are mercilessly abused. Words are omitted, misspelled, or misused (think mistaking “catheter/carafe” or “wanton/wonton”). Some sentences are nonsensical or factually inaccurate. It’s not a good look for a relatively expensive book that presents itself as a more elevated alternative than Llewellyn’s Astrology for Tweens or whatever.

TL;DR: I'm glad I own it, I'm going to flip through it a lot, and I wish someone had proofread it.… (meer)