I suspect that it's quite dated by now, but I learned the QID using Bogdan Lalic's book out of Cadogan.  If memory serves, it was one of the stronger offerings they produced--very clear, text, and good use of full games to provide examples.

I own most of the nimzo/QID books by Everyman and Gambit and they are all good. In particular Ward's Nimzo-Indian Kasparov Variation (dealing with 4. Nf3) taught me quite alot, as did Emms' Easy Guide (although nowadays I hardly use most of the lines he recommended!). Emms' is a little dated (especially on 4. Qc2) so you should keep up to date with chesspub or supplement it with other nimzo sources. 

The Yrjola/Tella Gambit QID book is also of very high quality. It will last you for years. The great thing I feel about the QID is that there are a few ways to play it (hedgehog style/Benoni style/QGD style etc.) so you can vary according to mood.

No doubt in my mind that the Emms book is the best place to start with the Nimzo.  I note that he has just written a book on the Queen's Indian too, in the "Starting Out" series.  I don't have it yet, but no doubt I will succumb at some stage.

There is an excellent (if somewhat weighty) Gambit book on the QID by Yrjola and Tella from last year, I think.  Maybe better to start off with Emms again, though, as it will be less to digest!

Another good piece of work is Carsten Hansen's book on the 4.e3 Nimzo - again, though this might be best left until later, as there is a lot of quite quite densely packed material.

Well, I was thinking about Khalifman's book too (I am 1800+), but since this opening is totally new to me, I feel that I should first get acquainted with the ideas of the opening and I think that Khalifman doesn't do well in this area. His books are - as you say - a repertoire, which is good, but does one really understand an opening by learning a repertoire? I think not...

Hi,

I have been playing chess for quite a few years now and all that time I haven't been able to find a good opening for black against d4. I Until now I have been playing d5, but most of the time the game just gets too dull with black having little chance to play for a win, especially in the exchange variation. So I thought about playing King's Indian or Benoni, but since I'm more a positional player than a tactical one I feel these openings aren't the right choice.
Which brings me to the Nimzo-Indian and the Queen's Indian. I have always liked the queen's indian, but the nimzo didn't really catch on, cause the idea of giving up my bishop pair so early just seems strange. Anyway, I find myself without an alternative since this opening does give black more chances for playing a positional game with winning chances than any other (correct me if I'm wrong).
So, I made up my mind: I'm going to start playing the combination Nimzo/Queen's Indian. What I need of course is a book (or two books) in which both openings are explained with a lot of text, so I can understand the opening rather than learning the moves.

So in short: does anyone know of a good book (or pair of books) in which both the nimzo-indian as the queen's indian are explained in detail?

Thanks,

Joris