Silmans books suck. I got way more from Fred reinfeld than I ever did Silman. He talks a good game but his system is no more intuitive then hearing a chinese guy say be like water.
Is Silman's Reassess Your Chess a bit beyond me?
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Silman doesn't teach you a 'system'. He just explains positional principles and gives you many examples and different ways of looking at the game. He also talks a lot about chess psychology, which is very important to a beginner, because most beginner's cave in the first time their opponent makes a threat.
I recommend the silman courses in chess mentor as well.
The first serious chess book I read was 'my system' by nimzowitsch. I was only rated about 1200 at the time. I don't think there is really a rating range you need to be at to read an advanced topic. Either you'll learn some stuff, or it will be over your head and you'll understand it later.
Nov 14, 2008
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#24
Get Silman's Complete Endgame Course. I'm swearing by it right now, and so does my coach - a FIDE master. I'll swear by the latter book when I get to it. 
Are you ready for Reassess? Not really.
If your time is a limited commodity and you you are taking your chess very
seriously, you'd be better off studying a different book. Sitting down with
Reassess at this stage just isn't efficient. If you aren't so deadly serious then it's
okay to study Reassess or other good books. Heck, start playing a large variety
of Hypermodern openings. If you're not serious what's the harm.
chesschamp92192 wrote:
You need a tactics book, to prove this start keeping track of why you when or lose games. I did this for 30 games and 24 times it was tactics that won or lost and only 6 times it was strategical elements like in Reassess Your Chess. And I am a 1700 so for you tactics win and lose you almost all of your games.
I def agree with what you're implying, but without a solid positional understanding the OPPORTUNITY for tactics won't present itself out of thin air.
stwils-
Yasser Seirawan's books are PERFECT for a begginer, followed by Amatuer's mind and RAYC.
You have to carefully go through the book(s) carefully, reading through each example. You can learn a lot from even advanced material. For example, read through a problem. Then ask yourself, what made that move good. Even if you don't completely get it, you'll gain insight to other possibilities. Go to Half.com for chess books. They are so much cheaper than Amazon.com. Most of the books run between a $1.00 and $5.00. It's great for all books and I've never had a problem. Hey contact me and I might be able to get you a pdf file of the book.