Customer Reviews

Astrology for Beginners: An Easy Guide to Understanding & Interpreting Your Chart

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book not to long ago, and it is one of my favorites. It gives you an overall view for astrology and basic interpretations of planets in signs, aspects, houses, ect. I especially reccomend it for beginners.

What can I say? It's the absolute best, must have book for ANYONE who has even a slight interest in Astrology. I've been an Astrology enthusiast for over 10 years now and even though my level is more in the intermediate to advanced range, I still find this as an invaluable, handy reference. It perfectly "walks" you through this fascinating, yet complex science in a simple and easy to understand format. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to go beyond those fun, yet very general and vague daily horoscopes you find in the paper. It even includes a mail in offer to get your own chart done! (At least my old copy does, not sure about the new edition)
This book will help you understand and interpret your chart to give you an enlightening and informative understanding of yourself.
It includes chapters that explain and interpret the meanings of all the twelve houses, the signs and their characteristics, the planets and their rulerships, even meanings to all possible aspects of your natal placements.
I really wish I had this book when I first developed an in-depth interest in Astrology. Again, A MUST HAVE FOR ANY ASTROLOGY ENTHUSIAST!!!

This book is a good reference for anyone interested in refreshing basic astrology, but it is a poor choice to use as a beginner's first book. One of the books major irritations is that the author changes the positions of planets which would traditionally be considered well placed, and does not provide an explaination for why he breaks from convention. For example, Mars is not considered dignified in Scorpio in this book and Venus is well placed in Aquarius?

I found it curious that he uses his own chart as the example, which would have been fine in itself, only by the end of the book I doubted his ability to be impartial about it. In his description of Cancer he claims that it is the most misunderstood sign (not Aquarius?), but mentions nothing of the Cancerian tendency to believe that they are misunderstood when they are not. He also says almost nothing good about Scorpio (he doesn't have any placements in Scorpio himself), and spends the majority of his time on his own positions while neglecting everyone else's. Perhaps, the negative trait of his own Leo rising?

Another amusing thing about this book is that the chart he does provide as the example for the book is incorrect. In my version of this book, figure 1 has Hewitt's Mars in Scorpio conjunct Neptune in Leo which is conjunct the Leo Ascendent. Well, it does not take a mathematician to figure out that Leo can only be conjunct Cancer or Virgo, or that Scorpio cannot be the sign on the 4th house cusp if Mars is in Scorpio in the 1st. Hewitt mention numerous times about how intelligent Gemini makes people( he has a stellum himself), but seems to forget the Gemini negative trait of spreading misinformation. He writes that Taurus people are not self aware, a statement usually true, but does not notice his own lack of self-awareness.

I would have given this book 3 stars because I felt there were too many pages dedicated to chart construction and not enough on chart interpretation. What little interpretation he offers in this book--a sentence here, a paragraph there, specifically when interpreting his own birthchart--I believe is very good, and would have liked the author to expand on this subject.

Besides that, I feel the general descriptions of the planets, signs, houses and aspects are well intuited and researched. And I have to give the author a star back for the many useful charts he includes in the text. Overall, a user-friendly guide for beginners and a quick refresher for intermediate astrologers looking to fill the gaps in their training. My two cents.

If you've just had your astrology chart done. (which you can
do for free on the Astrodienst website) Then this book will
help you understand what all the planets in various signs and
houses in your chart means and you will find that it most likely
describes your life and personality. See for yourself. Astrology
is a fun hobby.

This book is ok, but im not too keen on the way he writes - or more precisely the way he views people. He tends to put down those who are different from him, where as other astrologers tend to focus on the difficulties you are experiancing and how to overcome them.

The interpretations are about 3 sentances long and to be honest its not really worth the money.

I brought parkers astrology which covers the same things and far more for around the same price. I recomend you look into getting this one instead - its great value and also a brilliant resourse for other basic elements of astrology. Plus - its understandable for the beginner. You could also create a birth chart free on line at astro.com and use the parkers book to interpret it. (I sent off the free birth chart voucher that W. Hewit gives you about 6 months ago and still havent recieved it)

I learned a good deal of "basics" information from this book, which I suppose it what the author intended. However, there was also a good bit of information which I found lacking or not fully explained. For instance, although the author gives you a basic idea of how to determine the degree of aspect when two planets are in conjunction, he isn't particularly clear in advising how to determine aspects that spread across signs. For instance, you'd be left to thinking that you could count HOUSE PLACEMENTS rather than SIGNS to determine the degree of aspect, which is not true. Also, the "interpretations" in the last half of the book are very general and tend to become tiresome...so much so that I had to push myself to finish the book. Taken on the whole, it's still a worthy work for someone like me who's baseline knowledge was largely peripheral, but you may have to seek other sources to expound on what he does not explain.

I picked up this book about 10 years ago. At the time I had about as much knowledge of astrology as you can get from the newspaper i.e. none. It is chock full of information about just about everything. Particularly useful for students starting out is getting familiar with the houses and the signs as they affect factors in your life, not just your overall personality. It does lack some information on nodes but for a beginner's text, that is just fine.

I have continued to study and now am an astrologer. I have a considerable library but I still find I use this book for many different reasons. The organization is great and the concise explanations are a godsend. I cannot say enough how glad I am to have bought this book when beginning my studies.