Originally posted by Wulebgr
I have close to 1000 books on my shelves that I will never finish (including Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual), but if you trash any of them, I'll break your arms, your children's arms, their children's arms, ... (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Originally posted by YUG0slav
well of course I wouldn't trash your copy of Dvoretskys, after all, you paid so much for it

Originally posted by Wulebgr
I have close to 1000 books on my shelves that I will never finish (including Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual), but if you trash any of them, I'll break your arms, your children's arms, their children's arms, ... (metaphorically speaking, of course).m

Originally posted by tonytiger41
like many chess players, one rarely finishes the entire chess book. i can say i've completed maybe five chess books from cover to cover, despite skimming through hundreds. my short list of chess books completely read includes my system, the middle game, vol 1 (by euwe), pawn power in chess, pawn structure in chess (by soltis), and 1001 combinations (reinfeld).

I'm a beginner, and I've leafed through a fair number of books. I agree with earlier posters that some of the books you mention seem a bit tough at least for me.

At my bemused stage, two I've really found helpful are "unbeatable chess lessons for Juniors" by Snyder (I am 54 years old, don't be put off by the "Juniors" title!) and "Chess- the Art of Logical Thinking" by McDonald: both books go through games commenting clearly on the reasons for every move, which I am finding really helpful.

Because tactics are so important for us neophytes, i have found practice software really useful; I really like "Personal Chess Trainer" http://www.personalchesstrainer.com/, which I think is currently on special offer; or there are others like the Convekta series or the rather pricey Chess Mentor. I think you can get demos of all of these.

Lastly, do have a look at the brilliant Predator at the Chessboard site: http://www.bu.edu/dbin/law/chess/index.php. I just wish the author would publish this as a book!

Originally posted by talisker
"Chess- the Art of Logical Thinking" by McDonald: both books go through games commenting clearly on the reasons for every move, which I am finding really helpful.

Hi there,

while waiting to make the order at Amazon I read the thread about the Silman books about endgames.

Haveing to choose one endgame book between Silman and Dvtoresky which one and why do you suggest to put on my list?

Thanks.

Originally posted by mfoolb
Hi,

thank you all very much for the suggestions.

I'll buy the books in the next couple of weeks from Amazon (if there's no better deal); at the moment I'm rated 1297 here, my goal is 1500 in June.

Let's see what happen..

Ciao.

Originally posted by mfoolb
I'm going to post this as fast as I can.. I mean before my rating points will go down! 🙂

1503!

I have to admit I was lucky because of a couple of wins for timeouts and deleted player.. but that's it.. over 1500 one day before the timeline I chose.

Bye.

I enjoyed Chernev's *Logical Chess Move By Move*, a classic; and the more contemporary *Unbeatable Chess for Juniors* and *More Unbeatable Chess for Juniors* by Robert M. Snyder. :-)

Originally posted by mfoolb
Hi there,

while waiting to make the order at Amazon I read the thread about the Silman books about endgames.

Haveing to choose one endgame book between Silman and Dvtoresky which one and why do you suggest to put on my list?

Thanks.

Originally posted by YUG0slav
Silman's, because it's structured in a way such that you'll actually use it.

Originally posted by mfoolb
Well then.. any suggestion for the tactics puzzle book(s)?

Originally posted by HomerJSimpson
I have both and I like Silmans by a large margin, D's manual is very abstract and lacking in the explaination department.

Originally posted by clandarkfire
Not a puzzle book, but how about winning chess tactics by Yasser Seirawan?