Chess analysis for beginners, suggestions?

Logical Chess by Chernev. I love that book because it doesn't skip over the "obvious" stuff, which makes it really good for beginners. For instance, he writes about the pros and ideas of playing 1.e1 in every game where that is played.

You have to know something about strategy/middlegames/endgames to follow analysis / make your own analysis.  As you said, computers are the worst because a move may be strategically terrible, but tactically sufficient so it suggests that move without telling you anything...

So better is to have a human explain the moves, but even then if you're a beginner some things wont make sense yet.  Chernev's book qrayon suggested is great "Logical Chess Move by Move"  As you get better and learn more the better you'll get at analyzing yourself and understanding moves suggested by others as well as why other moves are ignored.

Another vote for Logical Chess by Chernev. It's the first chess book I ever read. It contains analysis of several great GM games, and gives the thinking behind every move of each game.

It's very helpful to know the point behind each move in a game, you can learn a lot from it. Moves that otherwise seem mysterious seem logical and you realize "Okay, so that's what he was thinking there".

Shoot, other than immediate tactical situations, I don't often understand why an engine thinks a move is good and I'm stronger than 1300. In fact, in post game analysis, that is pretty much all I can use the engine for; sometimes I can see more positional reasons behind an engine move choice but right now, that isn't very often.

Thank you all for your kind suggestions. I will try to get my hands on the book suggested, looks like my local library may have a copy :)

I'm starting to think that almost any chess question can be answered with the following statement: check out Coach Heisman's novice nook articles at danheisman.com.  He's got articles on all of your questions.

Also, I believe I just recently saw a chess mentor course on weak color complexes.  I haven't gone through it yet but I intend to.  That might help.

Beyond those two things, I know nothing.