Which books would you memorize. List a top 5 and any additional you feel would be necessary to master. 

Memorize or understand?

Silman's Complete Endgame Course, by Jeremy Silman - Will give me a well-rounded expertise on the endgame matters

Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games, by Laszlo Polgar - For obvious reason. That many problems, combinations and games will have to pay off

Chess Praxis, by Aron Nimzowitsch - I've read his My System, and it is full of information. i hear Chess Praxis is good as well

Fire on Board, by Alexei Shirov - A book I hear isn't for beginners. This book is given good reviews on several chess sites

World's Greatest Chess Games, by Graham Burgess, John Emms and John Nunn - A huge book with a total of 112 games. I've gone through about 60 of them. I must say it can be at times analytically heavy with lines and such, but it's worth it to go through them

both. there can be no use in forgetting what we learned to understand.

I can imagine someone memorizing, say, columns of MCO on the Dragon Sicilian, and not understand any step off the theoretical path...

ok well all that aside lets assume u understand what you are memorizing. which books do you think would give you the most bang for your buck.