My name is Aileen Taylor, my dad is Timothy Taylor who is a writer of chess books and an IM. I have played chess for fun over the years and recently gotten more into it, with the invention of so many chess apps and online playing. Now I don't need to make time for an occasional game, I can just have one or two going on my phone with players from different cities.

Just a reminder that this thread is here and it would be great for more of the active members to introduce themselves (or maybe you have an important update!).

My criteria for books:
1) It should be inspiring 
2) It should stand up to analytical scrutiny.

Both conditions are important, but to me (1) is more important than (2). For instance I like Dunnington's 1.d4 book even though me and my silicon friend both disagree with his assesments in some lines. I found his book inspiring. His recommendation against the Leningrad Dutch is outrageous and very fun to play!

Well's Tromp book probably reaches my ideal of an opening book. And I generally like Nigel Davies' work amongst others. But while davies, gallagher, watson etc are all good, the winner is....

Jeroen Bosch. His SOS columns and books from New in Chess are absolutely fantabulous. (read: very inspiring (1))

I like very much:

Speelman...Best games

Christiansen...Storming the barricades

Yermolinsky...Road to chess improvement

SutterCane

Inn2:  I should stress that I'm not endorsing Berliner's book--not worth your money--but might be worth a quick peruse.

Maybe as a way of stimulating this thread, I could ask a general question that people could also include in their introductions.  What are peoples' favorite chess books?  Either collections or (even more interestingly) opening manuals.  My three all-time favorites are Gregory Sanakoev's World Champion at the Third Attempt (correspondence chess), The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, and Tal's account of his 1960 match with Botvinnik.  Picking an opening manual is harder, and often depends on what I'm playing at the time.  Generally, though, I find Joe Gallagher and Graham Burgess good value for money.  John Watson and Neil McDonald, too.

Inn2: if you want to learn the Classical Dutch from Williams' book, beware. The book is sometimes rather optimistic about Black's chances. Moreover there are some important lines for White missing - especially Qb3 against Iljin-Zjenevsky with Qe8.

This thread is very intersting but has gone quite dead for awhile.  So here's an attempt to revive it and hopefully many of the new (?) members here will follow  

Me: law student, plays one "serious" rated tournament a year (i have no time!), Elo: 2000~2100. I hope to be an FM at some point in my life. I have fantasies of quitting law and starting a chess career!  But its really a fantasy for now...

Openings: 1. d4 as White. But I play it rather aggressively: Basically its f3 systems against just about everything. 

4. f3 in nimzo, Samisch KID. (actually I play 3. f3 so I suppose its f3 against grunfeld too), f3 in benko, benoni kapengut etc. Against QGD I go for exchange with Nge2 (again intending f3 and e4). 

I may be the only person in the world with this repertoire but I think it should be more popular. If anything its very thematic... Isn't it always a struggle for the e4 square in so many openings?? Playing f3 resolves the issue once and for all.   Weaker players are simply steamrolled in about 20 moves. I never have problems beating weaker players with White!

But no blackmar diemer for me though, even though it involves f3! I am aggressive but I try to stick with sounder lines   I believe all f3 lines are quite sound although f3 looks ugly in some openings. 

My opening for White, unlike Alumbrado, obviously isn’t according to Kramnik. I still haven’t found any GM with such a "consistent" repertoire as I have though! Please let me know if you people know anybody for me to follow. Right now I'm mostly looking at Dreev's games as he plays many lines i do. 

As black I play Caro-kann/Alekhine/ French in decreasing order of frequency against 1. e4. and nimzo/QID/bogo/black knights tango against 1. d4. I like 1… e5 against the English.

I am hoping to sharpen my play with Black so the next year will see me playing more alekhines and French rather than my good ol Caro. I have also been learning the dutch from simon williams’ book. 

That's all from me for now. I hope to get to know more chessplayers here. Do let me know what you think of my odd(?) repertoire!

Thanks for the feedback.  However, please DO NOT link until I go live!