What's a good book for a relative beginner?

I just want to say thank you to everyone for all of the great advice I also am receiving from this thread I purchased an upgraded membership on this website primarily because of the tactics trainer :-) and I will be going to Barnes and Noble soon.

The 7$ a month version will suit you just fine, If you later want to upgrade to the 14$ version, you can do so at any time.

I'm going to hit a couple libraries tommorow. 

Bro, get that 7$ membership(if you can) You can pay in one time installments, no sign up costs. I know, I know I'm being overbearing.  But, in this case I know I'm right,  I know top level competition chess players, and they all will tell you the same thing, 'tactics trainer'.  Do hundreds of them a month(a dozen or so a day).  You'll QUICKLY catch yourself playing better tactical chess.

If I don't see a crown beside your name, I'm gonna be sad.

What's a crown? Like 1600? 

5334 Problems, positions, and games, by Polgar.

Uggh, To Kill a Mockingbird was so boring!  Despite not really reading it I still did good on my exams, homework and such just by scanning for key events and words.  The Things They Carried on the other hand was a great and enjoyable read, didn't even need to pull out exam or homework techniques that involve minimal reading for it.  The Vietnam War was before my time but I know America didn't belong there.  Attacking a country just for democratically electing someone whose economic system you don't agree with is immoral, especially since said country did nothing to us.  It was basically abunch of poor and working class people being sent off to fight some war for what some rich people wanted. 

What you may need is chess training for post-beginners  or chess from beginner to club player. The latter is also in downloadable format. Also check these discounts if anything suits you. You can read some posts with beginners advice on this site.

To Kill a Mocking Bird was a great book and movie, but I don't think it answers the forum's question.  There are other forums where people can BS about literature and politics and religon so come on, guys, put a cap on it.  There are so many chess books around, it is important that the questioner does not waste time with second rate guides and become second rate players.  For the beginner, study mating patterns and endgame positions such as Philador's position.  Learn the game backwards from endgame to opening.  Then you will have an idea of a goal.  Send me a message for more hints, freely given.  Good luck!  I hope chess is as joyful experience for you as it has been for me over 40 years.  And yes, In-n-Out burgers are good burgers, Donny.

"Logical Chess - Move by Move" from Chernev is very good for a beginner. A classic really.

Squarely's suggestion about learning the game in reverse is very interesting to me. My first classical guitar teacher-conservatory trained -often suggested that I do that with pieces I was struggling with. Maybe there's a neuroplasticity basis for this...

Good god.  These threads never disappoint for awful advice.

When you become a member you get either a star, a crown, or a diamond beside your name.  The 7$ a month nets you a crown, like the one beside my name.

Endgames, to me, are the most complex aspect of the game - and the least interesting (though I'm aware many people find them the most interesting).  If I had had to learn to play endgames first, I'd have given up chess in the first week.  I think mating patterns and mating nets are interesting, however.

The middle game - strategy and positional play - make little sense to most novices and, I feel is the hardest to both teach and learn - endgames are mostly technique, but middlegames seem to involve a bit of art-  while openings probably make the most sense insofar as the basic goals are pretty simple and logical.

Two of the main components in both teaching and learning are motivation and maintaining interest.  I think learning the game backwards, however logical it may be, stifles both those components for many, and probably most, people.

• Any (good) tactics book will keep your interest.
• Endgame knowledge lets you convert the material advantage you gain from you tactics training into a win, usually through pawn promotion.

If you want art, science, and sport, then consider diving into middle game study.  But it's very easy to burn out in that phase of the game, without actually improving your playing strength.  Ditto with learning lots of different opening systems.

Your choice.  Very Simple.

I have most of the chess books mentioned, probably 30 books in all.

For any beginner 'Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess' really is great. First you need to be able to see on a chessboard what checkmates look like, and that's exactly what the book does.

After that maybe Seirwan's 'Play Winning Chess'. All of Yasser Seirwan's books are pretty good, I particularly like 'Winning Chess Openings' and 'Winning Chess Tactics'. The Openings book gives you a good overview of the first few moves of every major opening. And the Tactics book explains every chess tactic with examples.

Yasser has a friendly style of writing and the books are very accessible for learning, they do get quite advanced towards the end but are still manageable.

Bruce Pandolfini is another author whose books are beginner friendly, his two must have books IMO are 'Pandolfini's Endgame Course' (work through this one using your computer or chess set) and 'Weapons of Chess: An Omnibus of Chess Strategy'.

For the beginner I would NOT recommend either Chernev's 'Logical Chess Move by Move' or Fine's 'The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings'. They are just not as beginner friendly to read, a little bit dated, and go through whole games. As a beginner you probably don't want to read books where you are going through 20 or more moves in a game. Start smaller with other books where you only have to think through a few moves, and save the game analysis books for later. To this day I don't really like game analysis books, it feels like I'm doing math homework.

Polgar's 5334 Problems is a HUGE book with very little text, it's mostly all chess problems to solve (mate in one, mate in two, etc.) It's a good book to keep around, I still haven't went through it all, I probably should.

Susan Polgar's 'Chess Tactics for Champions' is very good too.

I have not read Jeremy Silman's books yet, I've been meaning to.

Really I think ANY chess book that you will actually read the whole thing is a good book. If you get something too advanced for you, or something that is just not your style (like game analysis books for me) they will not do you any good if you don't read them.

Another example 'Lasker's Manual of Chess' I have it but never read it. It's in descriptive notation, not algebraic, and I don't do the old description notation. I didn't know that before I bought it. Same thing with JR Capablanca's book.

For the more advanced books I found Nimzo's 'My System' easier to read than Vukovic's 'Art of Attack'. Dvoretsky has several advanced books that I'd also like to read.

But yeah if you're a beginner, take smaller steps and buy books you will actually read and enjoy.

Chernev is absolutely a good book for a beginner.  You aren't supposed to read all of the analysis, just the descriptions of why the moves are made.

depends on which relative

This should help you.