Chess Opening Books

What are the best, now that it is 2014? (Yes, I know that most time should be spent studying middle games and endgames.)

I'm considering purchasing a few books...maybe some repertoires and other books for someone in the 1200-1500 range...and maybe some for more advanced study later, some general tomes/volumes, etc.

Watson? Nunn? Kaufman (I think he has a couple)? Others?

FCO? MCO? ECO? NCO?

Thanks.

FCO

ICO

I hear good things about FCO, but that it does not go into the depth that the four volumes of the Watson books do.

Thanks for those Heisman links.

Also, thanks for the book recommendations. I'm leaning toward the four volumes by Watson to start. The others sounds great too. Can't hurt to eventually add more to the library down the road.

It depends on what you want to play.  Go with either Quality Chess (except for their GM series from what I see it's mostly variations with light text and if you're a level where you can benefit from it you should have a tool like Chessbase starter package at least anyway) or Chess Stars.  Beware though that opening books tend to age faster than other kinds of chess books.

In Shipov's first volume of his The Complete Hedgehog for example he adds a note to refer to the New Ideas in the 7.Re1 system after chapter 2-2's postscript:

"P.S.: Before putting the knowledge you have gained to practical use, it is imperative that you first go over my (i.e., Shipov's) analyses from chapter 2-5.  Unfortunatly, they are not so optimistic..."

This coming from a guy elsewhere in the book even admits he'd play nothing but the Hedgehog if he were going to play a world championship match and the opponent had half a year to prepare and explicitly stated he doesn't mind losing a few points to play his system more often!

  It was a very drastic example of the Gipslis' variation being refuted, but usually opening knowledge dating usually doesn't mean a refutation per se but rather black found a way to completely equalize in some cases or white found a better way of fighting for a slight edge. 

Openings:

FCO

Middlegame:

Techniques of Positional Play: 45 Practical Methods to Gain the Upper Hand in Chess

Valeri Bronznik

Wow, not totally sure but  "Chess for beginners" by I.A Horowitz is a good book.

I've heard that is a great book and that Chernev is a great chess writer. I plan on buying it at some point down the road. I think I'll read his Logical Chess Move by Move first, since I think it is directed more toward beginners.

The Middlegame, Book1 by Euwe. Yes, the title says "middlegame" but it covers a majority of the pawn structures you are likely to encounter in tournament play and the plans that go with those structures.

What about Book 2?

I also heard his Chess Master v. Chess Amateur book is excellent.

I like the Starting out series by Everyman Chess. These give a good introduction to an opening without all the variations seen in a proper repertoire book. However, some of the quality of them is variable. See chesscafe for an apparently unbiased review of most of them. The other advantage of the Starting out series is that you can get them in Chessbase format. This means you can quickly flick through all the lines.

I have also just bought FCO. I think it is very good. It gives well annotated overviews of an opening generally upto about 10 moves deep. It is also available as an Apple or an Android app, so that you quickly flick through the openings.

Book 2 delves deeper with individual facets of the middlegame and does very little in the way of opening strategy and schemes.