I was wondering if I could get some suggestions on what chess books might help me improve my game. I play very passively and at times, I am sitting at the board wondering what to do. It happens in every game for me, so I always end up making a waiting move of some sorts. When I win, it was because of an opponents blunder and not of my play.

Any help will  be greatly appreciated!!

What's your OTB rating? A 900 needs a different book than a 1800.

Chess is about strategy, alright? After you learn what each piece can do, you are ready to play. Beginners can't afford to plan long term strategies because of lack photographic memory and difficulty to make illusory moves. But that's where the science part of chess fades and in comes the artistic approach.

Any player with good imagination can design an attack. Time and again your attack will fail and you will lose, but you will improve. There is nothing better than seeing your planned attack yield its fruits.

 

Concerning books, I suggest you read those books that teach you endgame play, because they are simple and VERY important. I started playing advanced chess after studying the simple, but complicated case of the lone king against a king and a pawn! It just clicked to me the importance of positional play as opposed to material advantage.

I suggest you also study simple scenarios like that. Then proceed to cases of rook vs bishop or a knight, pawns vs a bishop or a knight and of course, pawns vs pawns! Playing strong endgame means playing good chess.

 Hope you got some inspiration. Cheers.

You sound like you know the rules but are fairly new to playing, or at least to playing seriously.  Here are some suggestions:

Chess Strategy by Edward Lasker.  It's almost 100 years old now.  It begins with how the pieces move but quickly moves into ideas behind openings, middlegame principles,and endgames.  An excellent book.

How Not to Play Chess by Eugene A. Znosko-Borovsky.  A short and easy to read book that will help you start thinking in terms of how to formulate a plan for your game.

The Middlegame in Chess by Eugene A. Znosko-Borovsky.  An in-depth study in how to evaluate a position once the middlegame is reached and how to proceed from there.

All these books are, of were, published by Dover and can be had very cheap, used, through deleroz.com and/or Alibris Books.

If you'd like to read other people's appraisals of certain books check out Amazon.com.  When you find the book you're looking for scroll down.  There are usually reviews of books written by other readers.  Amazon also has a 'marketplace' where books can be had used.