Small Steps to Giant Improvements - Master Pawn Play by Sam Shankland

That's what it boils down to...

But one will only benefit by serious study of the book...

As the adage goes...."you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Quote from kindaspongey obviously talks about chess players opinion about Kmoch's book. You are asking about general public opinion about math books. To me it's comparing apples to oranges.

The most advanced chess book I've had a look at was probably Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual. It's intended audience is well over 2000. It's hard as hell but it's written excellently and fun to read.

Advanced material can be explained clearly (Dvoretsky in chess, Feynman in physics) or it can be made obscure (Kmoch). In the latter case half of the time you spend struggling against the author's inability to explain things.

If you two keep it up, I am just going to have to read the book myself and render the definitive opinion. Now look what you've done!

@uri65 - My commentary on engineering and mathematics was by way of an analogy - i.e., the study of material that would be considered difficult and probably unappealing to most people.  

Obviously your perspective with regard to Kmoch's book is the opposite of mine.  I find Kmoch's explanations and terminology enlightening, not obscure.

If you read it, some day you'll thank me....

(It was part of the plan!)...

But understand this is not a book you can or should breeze through....

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Another caveat....

If for whatever reason you cannot or will not embrace both descriptive notation and Kmoch's novel (but apt) terminology, then you will not be able to enjoy the book.....in which case you should simply give it up and move on to something more to your liking - this does not reflect negatively on you, it simply means that the book is not your cup of tea....and that's ok....

For me, it's a cup of knowledge that I happily drink from....

Did you ever see the TV show, Monk? My guess is that, someday, I will have a kindaspongey opinion.

I never saw the TV show Monk.

@RussBell

http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/DE/PeriodicOrthogonal.aspx (post 18)

I don't see a problem with this. Just standard maths.

Monk was more recent (than 65-75). Anybody out there remember it? Perhaps some episodes are available online.

Sorry Plabuk, but I am not in the mood for math today. I need to save myself for Kmoch reading.

I just saw on Wikipedia that the show Monk ran in the early 2000's.  In fact, I had never heard of it until you brought it up.  But I am very selective and particular about what I watch on TV.  Sitcoms, drama and the various and sundry mindless entertainment fare are generally of no interest to me.

You must be brilliant!

If you watch it, you'll thank me, later.

Definitely not brilliant. Just an old engineer.

Sounds like me....(graduated from university in 1973 - now retired and spending too much time on chess.com)...

I'll give it a look, and we will see...!

Is there a particular episode that I should see?  If so, post a YouTube link if available..

This is a good book for pretty much any level of player, provided you have basic board vision (ie. 1300+ elo OTB roughly). Shankland does a good job of explaining things in great detail, using comparisons between similar positions.

I guess I should give my joke away. The main character frequently says, "You'll thank me, later." I have no idea which episodes had him saying that, but it was a lot of them.

Upon reflection, I concluded that might be the case, but never having seen the show, I wasn't sure...

In any case, if you do find an episode you care to recommend, I will watch it....otherwise, I may or may not, since it isn't a particularly compelling priority for me...

But the e-book won't be

Good point! My last purchase of a paper book goes back to 2013, since then it was only e-books (ChessBase, Forward Chess, Gambit Chess Studio)