I know it's an oldie but is it a goodie for a lower ranked player like myself? Any and all comments welcome, even if another book is recommended since I'm turning into a "real chess player" by getting too many books to read at once :)

Well, I think the official chesskid curricilum is better

http://www.chess.com/download/view/chesskidcom-curriculum

I have read that golden book. first 50 pages are for lower players : below 1000 maybe , and then Laskers insidiousley raises it up to some complex Endgames with very long variations !( 1800 may be). So it's not a good start for lower rated players surely.

Just make sure you don't pay for it. It can be found for free on project Gutenburg, although the diagrams are next to worthless (text diagrams). Here's the link. http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1460104

not good a way for reading a valuable book. also it's new 21st century Edition is in algebraic notation and with very high physical quality. Always the books are another thing .....I have near 200 PDFs of some great and rare chess books but I prefer picking up a nice book even an old one , flipping the pages , touching the diagrams...and reading deep through them !

If you're just wanting to read a "vintage" book of that type, I think The Game of Chess by Tarrasch is better.

The 21st century version of the book is a 100% improvement over the old book which had no changes since 1932 they corrected all the mistakes, added more diagrams and photo's freshened it up.

You're in good hands with either Lasker's or Tarrasch's book.

"The game of chess " is more fundamental. Laskers' is more advance.

Thanks for all the input, I think I'll wait until I get a little bit stronger for the updated Lasker book

Lasker has two excellent books.  The first was a Common Sense in Chess and the other the Lasker Manual.  Both are excellent reads.