Try Coach Heisman's website danheisman.com for comprehensive lists by category, although why Coach insists on still recommending MCO is beyond me. If you're brave and don't mind wading through hundreds of posts, you could always do a "search forums".
can anyone suggest some good chess books?
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This may be an unpopular recommendation, based on the openings it suggests, but I think a valuable book for someone at your level is "How To Think Ahead In Chess." I would agree with critics that openings such as the Stonewall Attack are probably not the best for becoming a highly rated player. But the value of the book lies in the easily understood explanation of the openings given.
The advice most often given here is to simply follow good opening principles, and that is good advice. But what the book will do is show you how those principles can work in actual practice. At your level, they could help win some games and make chess more enjoyable. Later, you can look into other lines which may offer better prospects, and have some understanding not only of opening principles, but the power of piece cooperation, and how this is achieved. In addition, the ideas of piece coordination can help when faced with unfamiliar situations.
It isn't a book for your entire lifetime career in chess, but it's not a bad place to start. I think it will help your understanding of more advanced books later.
Also, I would suggest avoiding Blitz and Bullet, except for occasional "fun," if you enjoy such things. For study, you need to play long games where you have time to think and calculate. The fast stuff is for instinctive reactions based on experience. The experience must come first.
It depends on what your level is, and on what material you are ready for. Some books are great for beginners, while others would be for more experiences players. I'll recommend some that I think most people would benefit from. If you go through books slowly, you'll get more out of them than if you go through several quickly. I made that mistake when I first starting playing. Even so, part of the excitement is sometimes skipping ahead to see what new information is covered.
Pawn Power in Chess (Hans Kmoch)-excellent for describing pawn formations and how they can interact with other pieces. Any version I have found is in descriptive notation, but I think there is an algebraic version. This books is known for it's use of terms that I think the author made up, but it's worth reading. The terms aren't hard to get used to.
Chess Tactics From Scratch (Martin Weteschnik)-great book for tactics, although depending on your level, there are many tactics books out there. I would definitely recommend buying a tactics puzzle book at some point. The tactics it covers are the pin, discovered attack, the reloader, double attack, overloading, gain of tempo/intermediate move, x-ray, opening/closing lines. It also includes two chapters on status examination and candidate moves.
1001 Deadly Checkmates (John Nunn)-contains checkmate puzzles, organized into chapters by different themes (such as removing the defender, doubling your Rooks, back rank mates, using diagonals, and many more). Each puzzle is rated a certain number of points between 1 and 5. The great thing is that it doesn't tell you how many moves are required to checkmate, which is helpful because you have to think harder to solve the puzzle.
The Reassess Your Chess Workbook (Jeremy Silman)-this book seems like a summary of Silman's larger book How to Reassess Your Chess. This workbook contains 131 puzzles to solve, usually based on chess imbalances. There is some great information in this one.
Complete Endgame Course (Jeremy Silman)-although it doesn't contain absolutely everything you might need to know about the endgame, it has a lot of useful information. It is organized by playing strength, so you can work through it slowly as you improve. It would be worth flipping through the more advanced sections from time to time, though, because there is some information in the later chapters that players of all levels might find useful.
enjoy!
Farnsworth's 'Predator at the Chessboard" BOTH volumes. You'll get a lot out of it...then after you've improved a few hundred points, read again and you'll get even more out of them. Some books may be a bit above you're rating level, but you get SOMEthing out of them. Then as you improve you can get more out of them.
I've read books and thought they weren't much good, but after reading them again later, found I wasn't good enough the first time to GET much out of them. It was me, not the book.
I am trying to find some chess books in the bookstore. But the books are only about the rules and so on.Do you all have any books that you suggest?