Top 10 books
Biography Emanuel Lasker by J. Hannak
The Oxford Companion to Chess by Hooper and Whyld
Why Lasker Matters by Andrew Soltis
The two books I"ve really lived with and near-worn the covers off are:
Lev Alburt - Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions
Raymond Cheng - Practical Chess Exercises - 600 lessons from Tactics to Strategy
I wish I could say I was killing Smyslov and Levenfish's "Rook Endings": or Bronstein's "Zurich 1953" or some other books with more cachet.
The rest of the time I'm more like a magpie, dipping into one book then another.
What I have read of Kasparov's "My Great Predecessors" series has wowed me. Those would be my Desert Island chess books.
I will contribute what 10 books I myself feel have been most useful in no particular order:
[1] Complete book of chess strategy ~ Silman
[2] Amatuers Mind ~ Silman
[3] Complete Endgame course ~ Silman
[4] How to reassess your chess ~ Silman
[5] MCO 15 ~ Firmian
[6] Understanding the chess openings ~ Collins
[7] Logical chess move by move ~ Chernev
[8] The Life and games of Mikhail Tal ~ Tal
[9] Tune your chess tactics antenna ~ Neiman
[10] Chess for tigers ~ Webb
Top 10 for myself No particular order:
1. Weapons of Chess - Pandolfinni
2. MCO 15 - Firmian
3. Alekhine's best games 1908-1937 - Alekhine
4. The Art of the Middlegame - Keres & Kotov
5. My 60 Memorable Games - Fischer
6. Reassess your Chess- Silman
7. Silman's Endgame Course
8. Judgement & Planning in Chess - Euwe (Descriptive Notation, but Great read)
9. Secrets of the Russian Chessmasters V2 - Alburt & Parr
10. 10 most common chess mistakes - Evans
Other great books I've read that aren't instructional related.
1. Book of Chess Lists - Andrew Soltis (Great book! I found out Edward Lasker invented the mechanical breast pump from this book XD)
2. Endgame (Bobby Fischer) - Frank Brady
3. Bobby Fischer goes to war - Edmonds & Eidinow
4. Russians Versus Fischer (Not only are their annotated games of Fischer against Soviet players, but also written conversations between soviet players regarding Fischer. Apparently Karpov & Fischer were in talks of a match after 1975, cause Karpov wanted to challenge the best)
5. Searching for Bobby Fischer - Fred Waitzkin