hm... i think i may get  emms's simple chess books along with the reassess your chess book. perhaps, i'll pick up the art of attack and zurich 1953 later on...

while i'm here, can anyone recommend a good tactics puzzle book. the emms's ultimate chess puzzle book looks good with 1000 puzzles and whatnot.

The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played: 62 Masterpieces of Chess Strategy by Irving Chernev would be on my list.

Quote:


I hear the English version of Tal's book "Tal-Botvinnik 1960" praised a lot, but I seriously wonder how many of those praising it have really read it in detail, cover to cover. The "translation" is actually rather poor and I really thought that this would be common knowledge by now, following the article by Ken Neat in New in Chess Magazine 1997 No.7 pp.72-3. You probably recognize the name - Dr Neat is a professional linguist and is responsible for having translated the vast majority of the chess books translated from Russian that are on all our shelves. (In this respect, the English-speaking chess world owes Ken Neat a huge debt of gratitude.)
 
Part of the reason Neat finally went public on this matter was that he had taken the trouble to send a list of corrections privately to Russell before the second edition appeared, and Russell took little or no notice. Neat: "I was dismayed to find that, although a few improvements had been made, notably in presentation, the majority of the translation mistakes were still present."
 
Neat concluded his two page critique in New in Chess thus: "The really sad outcome of this is that English-speaking readers have effectively been denied access to Mikhail Tal's splendid account of how he won the World Championship, since it is unlikely that another, worthy translation of his book will ever be published."

So unless and until there has been a further, FULLY revised edition, potential readers should be wary of this book.

Almost all recommendations above are quite good.

For positional play:

Silman Reassess your chess 
Siman  Reassess your chess workbook
Nunn    Understanding chess move by move
are all quite good.

Gelfer Positional Chess Handbook
is also quite interesting and can be bought quite cheap on the internet.
but a large part of this book is endgame orientated.

Two other book's on middlegame strategy should be mentioned:
Marovic        Understanding pawn play in chess
Marovic        Dynamical pawn play in chess

Some remarks on other recommendations:
"Nunn Grandmaster chess move by move"
is mainly a collection of Nunn's own games. It differs from 
Understanding chess move by move, as the games are orderd
chronological rather than thematic.

"Barburin Winning pawn structures"
is a bit advanced, and deals with one pawn structure only: the isolated queen pawn.

I don't have "Nunn-secrets of practical play"
but do have "Nunn-Secrets of practical chess"
I can recommend this book but note that it has a quite large endgame section.

Tactical Play
I am a bit surprised at the lack of books on tactics/attacking play
Vukovic The art of the attack
is a must have.
Lighter reading, but certainly worth having is:
Damsky/Tal Attack with Mikhael Tal

Further a good combination puzzle-book or CD is indispensible.
To keep in shape, depending on your level spend two or tree days a week
half an hour solving tactical puzzles.

Game Collections/Tournament books

Bronstein         Zurich 1953             a must have book
Tal                  Tal Botwinnik 1960    Tal's honest account and detailed annotations of his WCmatch

I like the Bellin/Ponzetto book (which consists largely of a bunch of test positions where you are supposed to choose the correct/best plan) very much.  However, a student of mine rated around 1700 (i.e. considerably higher than an "advanced beginner") told me that it was too difficult and that "at my level, all those plans are equally good."

The first book I might tend to think of in response to the question is Larry Evans' "New Ideas in Chess."

I appreciate the replies. I think, for now, I'll get the silman's reassess your chess and the zurich 1953 books.

I already have nunn's understanding chess move by move (apparently not the same of grandmaster chess move by move), but it's variation heavy; the explanations though are interesting.

I have to say, there's a number of complaints in the reviews on amazon for silman's book.

JonHecht wrote on 12/03/07 at 03:13:34:

By Euwe and Kramer.  Very good books IMO.

I also liked Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess recommended above.

Other books I found useful:
Vukovic's Art of Attack in Chess.
Soltis's The Art of Defense in Chess and Pawn Structure Chess.
Nunn's Secrets of Grandmaster Play is outstanding.  (Secrets of Practical Play, which I don't own, is also supposed to be excellent)
Barburin's Winning Pawn Structures.
Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now.

Game collections with detailed annotation (especially when there is lots of explanatory prose as opposed to just a dry listing of variations) can also be quite instructive, and an enjoyable way to learn about the game.  In addition to Bronstein's book on the Zurich 1953 Candidate Tournament, which seems to be on most players' top ten list, some books I like are:

Nunn's "Move by Move" books.
Stohl's Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces.  
The World's Greatest Chess Games by Burgess, Nunn, and Emms.
Alekhine's My Best Games of Chess.
Tal's The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal and the book he wrote on his 1960 World Championship Match with Botvinnik.

lunkhead wrote on 12/02/07 at 22:35:06:

Which ones? He has written quite a few. Most but not all of them are good.