How useful are chess books?

How useful would you all consider chess books to be for improving your playing? How do they compare to chess streams and YouTube videos?

If you find books very useful which would you recommend? Thanks I’m advance!

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Hi advance!

Personally I believe improvement happens in your own head. So it doesn't really matter if you watch videos or books, as long as you internalize whatever it is that you are supposed to be learning by practicing and calculating and seeing for yourself on an actual chess board. And analyze your games through the lens of the concept you are currently trying to learn. This is where the actual work and progress happens. Books and videos are only the introduction, so to say.

I would say, however, that I also believe that chess books are usually much better organized and comprehensive than most videos. One book can be more coherent than a bunch of short videos. Maybe it is also a matter of which sizes you like your bites (i.e. how much time you have).

Lastly I believe that different points of view can also help trigger some understanding in your head which would otherwise remain dormant, so that it can be useful to try different sources for concepts you have a hard time grasping.

Disclaimer: I am not a good chess player, I am also not a professional chess coach.

Cheers and best of luck!

(P.S. For an overview of chess books, see e.g.: https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond)

I will preface this with the fact that I am not a good chess player either. I find books that explain basic general principles super helpful in improving my understanding and execution of the game. I like knowing what factors to consider when making move decisions. The basic principles are essentially the factors that impact this. For example, I just finished Discovering Chess Openings. The author discussed lots of principles. One of which was not moving my queen out early in an opening where it can be attacked by pieces of lesser value. After reading this, it became a consideration in my openings. As a result, in 1 e4, I probably would not move 1... d5 if I was playing black. The reason is because it could result in a 2 exd5 which would then force me to move 2...Qxd5 to offset my pawn loss. With my queen out on d5, white could respond with Nc3 attacking my queen and forcing me to waste a move escaping the attack. I find books that explain principles like that to be useful in improving how I make decisions in a game. I have not watched may videos but I would say any media books, videos, podcast, etc that explain basic principles that I could in turn use as factors in my decision making would be useful to me.

At a lower rating, chessbooks are fairly useless. As long as you know how the pieces moves, it's more important to work on board vision and simply not hanging pieces.

As you get higher, they become way more important. There is a lot of ideas that you can't understand unless someone explains them to you. Like the importance of a blocked pawn and where the strongest squares are related to it. 

Then books become useless again, and only master games are important. Studying to see how the masters before you managed to combine all the ideas you learned from books. 

I'm not very good at chess but am reading books as I want to gain a deeper understanding of the game rather than just moving pieces around and hoping for the best! I get caught out too many times because of lack of understanding. I'm working my way through 2 and 1 more on the way chess books. Actually 'working my way through' sounds laborious and boring but I've avoided what I consider to be those types of books.

I have Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, Let's Play Chess A Step by Step Guide for New Players and have just ordered Discovering Chess Openings as this is the hardest part of chess for me at the moment.

I'm finding the books useful and fun. I see patterns and moves now more than I did before.

Not much if you don't read them.

I would recommend "Chess Beatdowns". Lots of tactics and strategy, easy to read for beginners. Available on Amazon:

Chess Beatdowns

Totally agree with Loubalch! There is so much good info in so many books,that to think they are not worth reading is folly.

Very useful...

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

A good book is useless if you only "read" it. It is important to work with it, and this is something that most people don't know how to do.  Or they know but don't want to invest time in such a project.  Usually a player will purchase a book, go through one chapter or two, and put it in the bookshelve and purchase the next one. 

I've been sort of working my way thru Lev Alburt's series and he states, I think...and I'll paraphrase, people learn in different ways:  some from a lecture, some from books, some from over the board and some from a computer (if your eyes can handle the flicker).  Find what works best for you.  Recently I made my first comment at this forum concerning books and the first reply I received was that "books are for losers".  That poster was immediately reported to the moderator.  As a former educator I KNOW this stuff and I'll reiterate, different people learn in different ways.  I am an author (one book) and a member of my family is in publishing.

@tjkoko Well stated!

With several degrees I have books on my shelves dating to the 1600's.

+1... Well said.