Developing a solid chess reportoire

Hello everyone,

While I'm new to this site, I'm not new to the game of chess. I would like to develop a solid opening reportoire but am not sure of what reading material to purchase. Despite being a predominately e4 tactical player, my great opportunity to play and get crushed by IM Ippolito has given me great respect and appreciation of positional play, and specifically of the move 1. d4. I never really adopted a reportoire ever, and focused namely on tactics, and used basic opening development. However, I am slowly starting to find my lack of opening knowledge debilitating when playing stronger players. I'm currently working through Modern Chess Strategy, and Fundamental Chess Endings during the week, but want to slowly start adding opening material during my weekends. I also want to learn mainline stuff too, and not offbeat sidelines. Can anyone give me a good recommendation for a book on 1. d4 that explores mainlines, or several books that cover mainlines in the important variations if no such tome exists? Additionally, I want to adopt a response to e4 that's solid, without too much opening theory, yet does give winning chances. I was leaning towards the french, but I keep hearing bad things about the light squared bishop and some forced draw, so I'm not sure if this is a good idea. 

Thanks for the suggestions,

-Gelolobong

I know this isn't opening principle, but you should check out:
Combinations - The Heart of Chess

It's a really old book, published in the 70's (ish), but it's really great for tactics. It goes by the older notation form, like P-B7 and Kt-R2, so it's a pretty challenging read to start off with, if you're not familiar with it.

Umm, a good opening book would probably have to be:
MCO Vol.15

I think that's the most recent version of Modern Chess Openings. It's really in-depth, with a few hundred variations to about every standard opening. 

Good luck on your quest to be a better player!

I play 1.e4 and french gives me the most trouble out of all black responses. I don't know about a forced draw in the french, I know the exchange variation can be drawish. But the french is solid, it's also good because 1.d4 e6 is also playable which can transpose into the french, nizmo or queens indian. 

Pachman's book should help you a lot. It's more modern than My System and has much more information.

Modern Chess Openings should help as well.

Sicilian, Sicilian, sicilian.  The Najdorf, Dragon, and sveshkinov, although complicated lines, give White the most trouble - these should be your long term commitments.