Essential Astrology

Herring's handbook is complex but not complicated, aimed at beginners who are ready to move beyond the popular stereotypes of the sun signs (e.g., Taurus is stubborn and Leo is a loudmouth) toward reading and understanding their own natal charts as a "map to living life at your maximum potential." Herring covers the symbols and grammar of the astrological map and then systematically offers insightful and casual but not too chatty guidance on characteristics, nuanced interpretations, reflective questions, and descriptions of how each archetype manifests in action for each of the planets, moon nodes, signs, and houses. The interpretive section covers aspects between planets, then offers short primers on several interpretation techniques before diving more deeply into the nodal foundation method, Herring's system of choice. To provide examples, she applies each method to the chart of comedian Steve Martin. But Herring never brings her readers explicitly back around to feeling confident with their own charts, or with bringing astrological insight into their own lives, leaving them with methodology but not inspiration. (Mar.)