Chernev's 'Logical Chess: Move by Move' is a classic. A wonderful book for almost all standards of chess player.

The style has been reproduced by chess authors such as Neil McDonald & Robert Snyder. And again they are good reads and very instructive.

Why aren't there more chess titles in that style? Is it that a chess book can only be 'value for money' if it gives more annotation/less explanation per penny/cent?

How many times have we looked at a position where after following a line of annotation we are told " and White/Black stands better".

No explanation of why they stand better.

Any thoughts out there or am I very much in a minority?

Chernev's book is rightly recommended a lot in these forums. I would say even up to 1400 otb or so, with less benefit being derived after that.

I suppose less wordiness can be laid at the feet of a lazy author. Sometimes the target audience is skilled enough to understand what's happening minus a lot of text, making the abbreviated explanations or evaluations still very sensible.

I enjoy even paragraphs though. Evans and a bunch of GMs had a book out many years ago with all words of sage advice and observation, and no moves at all as I recall.

I agree

youre in the majority.

the answer Im guessing, is because its all about the money these days. every time I get an old chess book I am shocked to find how much pure knowledge it contains.

todays chess market? tons of opening books, which are mostly set from one side (repertoire books) in these books there will be biased claims, and a lot of computer analysis to bulk it up. they will avoid the lines with a possible refution all together, or at least say "here we get to a complex spot where its anyones ballgame"

they then repeat this with another opening, or combine a bunch and label it with a theme.

sure, there are tons of great books and authors these days- Silman, Watson, Sadler are good authors IMO but you see too much of what I described above.