Best rep book... for a 1700 elo player? For a 2200 one?

Vitiugov and Antic books are good, but they not cover some lines that you'll meet for sure OTB in a 1500-1700 battleground. Watson does.

Antic covers very well advance var (the most popular lines bellow 2000), 7...Be7 Classical and McCutcheon. Williams covers very well 3.Nd2 Nf6 lines (in my opinion). Vitiugov is excellent in his 2.Nd2 c5 chapter..... and so on. Depending of your pet lines you may like one or another book.

My choices:

• vs Advance: Antic
• vs Tarrasch: Vitiugov
• vs Nc3: Moskalenko's BQB (Watson is also good in this line)
• vs Exchange: I don't know 
• vs KID and 2.Qe2: basically is more a question about the line you really like than how is presented in a book

I the option was buying only one single book, for sure Watson PTF4 would be my choice.

If you are an absolutely newbie in the French, McDonald's "How to play against 1.e4?" is the one you need. Not too deep in the analysis but very very well explained.

Thx,

McDonald's How to play against 1.e4

and Eingorn's Rock-solid repertoire for Black

are both not too old I think, and soon Berg's 3 volume rep is coming too - so, not much point to vote on this topic if we have to do it again in 6 months...