What the best book or resource for learning how to play / defend various openings?  I really enjoy the tactics trainer and chess mentor portion of the website but the book openings section is not as strong.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

I suggest that you just practise one opening first. And when you know many sidelines of the opening, you can practice a new one. So... always play e4, or d4, or c4 or what else. And not play this time e4 and the next time d4. And you must find out what reply is best for you. I'd say : replay the same opening over and over again.

I learned it with a mate playing endless games of the same opening.

Then I bought something called a Batsford and I was set to destroy my enjoyment for chess :p

i buy books to learn and speed up my openning for example sicilian all the varition of sicilian ,,the offense and the defense of that openning ,where the weak and the strong point thats how i do.

Of course you first need to know what kind of game feels best for you. You could for instance browse through game explorer, check out the lines that you feel comfortable with, and the name of the opening will appear below the diagram.

As soon as you have an idea what you like, you can look for the perfect book. I usually check first if there is a book in the "starting out" series of everyman chess. Books for the enthousiastic amateur. A lot of text and explanations behind the variations, instead of endless analysis that you (at least - I) will forget in a week or so.If you still like the opening after reading the basics, you could look for more on the same subject.

There are also repertoire books that can be handy, but at times are incomplete or too difficult. For a year or so I just used "attacking with e4" for white. It had all I needed to know :-).