"The Amateur's Mind" by IM Jeremy Silman is highly rated on Amazon.com and is supported by 74 reviews and can be had for about $11.
I came across this very good book "The Complete Chess-Mastery Course" by Jeremy Silman
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The Idiot's Guide to Chess by GM Patrick Wolff is probably the best first book out there.
1. chessmaster 2. Idiot's guide 3.those Silman books in 6 mos or a year, those are great second and third chess books, not first chess books. But chessmaster, as a training partner + tutorials you can't go wrong.
"The Everything Chess Basics Book" is endorsed by the U. S. Chess Federation.
Thanks for the posts guys,get ready for my rating to rise (when I finally read 1 of these books)
Thanks for the posts guys,get ready for my rating to rise (when I finally read 1 of these books)
Hey, that's my problem -- actually reading the books let alone working the exercises.
The Idiot's Guide to Chess is the best single book you can buy.
If you want to buy software, I recommend the latest version of Chessmaster.
Another suggestion : Don't buy books or software. Go to chesscafe.com and read up Dan Heisman's 100+ Novice Nook "FREE" articles. Once you've read them backwards and forwards, move towards the other suggestions.
BTW, Jeremy Silman's "look for imbalances" books for a beginner seems a little ambitous ...
S.
My first strategy book was "How to Think Ahead in Chess".
Sometimes I still play the Stonewall. But I never play the Dragon.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I thought that Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess was terrible.
The Idiot's Guide to Chess is the best single book you can buy.
If you want to buy software, I recommend the latest version of Chessmaster.
I agree with you. "How to Beat Your Dad at Chess" isn't a bad book either.
I see a theme with chess players that eventually they want to beat their dad. I'm thinking pretty much that when you first learn the rules, even if your dad is a 1300 equivalent, it's gonna be hard to beat him. But with a little bit of work, it'll be easy.
What happens when your dad is an FM-calibre player? Do they not play chess, because they'll never be able to beat their dad? How important is this?
We have some online chess resources collected here: http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/online-chess-resources . Feel free to add some if you know of any.
Idiot's guide to chess isn't too bad. Mammoth book of Chess by Graham Burgess is a nice all around package as well.
I seem to like Silman's "The Amateur's Mind" because of the format of teaching. Other good books, which are nonetheless classics, are "My System" by Nimzowich and "Chess Fundamentals" by Capablanca.
thanks mike for posting/ restarting this forum ,i still havent got round to reading any of them yet :)
"Logical chess: move by move" by Irving Chernev really opened my eyes a lot. It's just a series of instructive, highly annotated games with a healthy sprinkling of diagrams along the way. But it explains the basic principles of strong play very clearly.
As I have said on other threads, "The Game of Chess" by H. Golombek, though old, is a pretty good introductory manual - inspired me to take the game seriously for some time - good enough to become quite feared on the Congress circuits for a while till I gave chess up rather brusquely (women an' money were a greater attraction 
) but the book I still possess, an' still look at from time to time myself - it all fallin' to bits now, but whenever anybody ask me about learnin' chess I always lend 'em that book - it a bloody good book 
Yes I recommend Chessmaster, is seem nobody mention Alpha teach yourself Chess in 24 hours by Zsuzsa Polgar, Houinhan 'Paul' Troung and Leslie Alan Horvitz, is look good to me suitable for beginner and intermediate level.