A few words on a few books

I bought four chess books recently, based on the advice of a few friends and a few forum posts on this website. I'm posting this thread to *slightly* influence anyone looking to pick up a chess book. I would caution that these are my initial impressions, and I am not any kind of authority on chess or chess books. I will revise or add to my opinions as I finish the books.

I picked up "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess," "Logical Chess Move by Move," "How to Reassess Your Chess 4th edition," and "The Art of Checkmate"

I would not recommend Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess to anyone who has already spent time studying tactics and/or checkmates, as the first half of the book took me about ten minutes to go through and was very disappointing. The concepts are solid though and if you know someone who is new to playing chess, likes chess, and would go through the "program" it could be worth the few dollars it costs.

I do like The Art of Checkmate -- except that it's not written in algebraic notation. It is its own exercise (for me) trying to go through the moves mentally, even with the supplemental diagrams. Using a board to go through the moves would alleviate that issue, though. It repeats itself a bit to reinforce its themes which can make it a little difficult to go through, but it has a good point. I haven't seen another book that really pushes general checkmate pattern recognition. I would recommend it if you can find it with the notation translated into algebraic, or if you're comfortable with the old notation / taking the time to go through each game over the board with the book.

Then there's "How to Reassess Your Chess" -- I bet if someone had bought me this book a few years ago or even a month ago I would have really appreciated it... but since becoming a premium member on this site and dedicating weeks to reading about chess strategy and watching countless videos a lot of the material feels... reinforcing... which doesn't make it easy to keep reading. The preface addresses the fact that he used some of his articles from here in the book, which is understandable. I'm just saying if you're pretty good at general chess strategy and/or you've done a lot of studying of this site's materials, I might recommend looking for something a bit more advanced.

That leaves my favorite book - "Logical Chess Move by Move" - I would absolutely recommend this book to everyone. I love this book. As one reveiwer said... paraphrasing "You would think explaining the merits of '1. e4' would get repetitive but the author finds ways to keep each game fresh." In the Art of Checkmate book the same concept kind of gets drilled five times, but in this book the author chooses games that are each a little different, leading to the theme being presented, but it has kept my interest and made me come back again and again. The author covers a lot of "Why not Qxh3?" questions you might have but gives just the right amount of detail to not detract from the theme or distract from the main lines.

Feel free to add your own reviews and experiences, or to criticize my opinions if you feel differently about these books.

Silman's "How to Reassess Your Chess" first came out in 1986.  It seems more likely that he used some of the material from his book for his columns here than the other way around.

No, he really says in the preface that he used some of his articles from this website, with permission, in his book. The 4th edition is a complete overhaul, written "from scratch."

Bobby Fischer teaches chess is a good book for someone who just started chess but, knows the moves. Evidently you are a more advanced player. In that case the book won't teach you much that you don't already know.

Thanks 9kick9, I agree with you. I updated my post, you said what I had originally intended to say. I still have about 100 pages left, though, and it's totally possible that it really ramps up the difficulty

You might like the lessons with a grandmaster, two vol set, by Gulko later. Same sort of concept as logical chess move by move but more advanced and based on Gulko's game. A club player student of his, is asked questions, going through the games.

Thank you very much! I'll check it out for sure