Hitting a brick wall at 1800

Have now leveled out at 1800 after a period of increasing, and feel its time to bite the bullet and do something I never thought I'd do... study

I've been enjoying some success with the english opening as white, and have been torn between the sicilian for black, or my new fav I discovered the other month, the modern defence. Someone the other week recommended using a database in opening moves in correspondance, but I'm at the point now where I need to know why I'm putting my pawn on d5, not just shove it there because I'm supposed to.

I'm ditching the sicilian, as a) its been studied far too much, and b) most players at 1800 know it far far better than me and plonked for the modern, which seems far more flexible.

So, anyone have any recommendations on books, articles, dvds etc that concentrate solely on the english opening, and modern defence? Don't think my in game tactics / theory is great, but I plan on improving this with games, not books, so for time being advice on how to master the two openings above would be great!

first off...are you talking about your 1800 rating on here or in real life otb?

1800 on here, no idea in real life, never played a tournie in my life. I play correspondance as my 'serious' chess, and live chess just to dick about with openings and moves, to see what happens (I mainly play unrated games)

I've got my heart set on these 2 openings, and its what I've been playing in the last 6 months (not played chess since a 12yr old or so before then). I think I'll have a look at end games, something I've never looked at before. I've come across bish v knight end games a few times recently, and rather than spending a day working out my next move, it would be nice to figure out what in do in say, 15 minutes! Will have a look at John Watson and Mihail Marin stuff. Anyone have a recommendation for the modern? I was looking at a website of some English GM, whose name I forget, who swears by the modern. 

As for the Nimzovich Defence, I've never moved a horsey on first move, would feel like going back to square 1 again if I changed my opening / response strategy? I'm quite a defensive player, would rarely see me sending my queen out in first 5 moves, or moving bishop up more than 3 rows in opening!

I already do the puzzle things (when I remember) and daily puzzle, perhaps upgrading my chess membership might be useful?

Cheers for the responses so far!

Another cure for your brick-wall is studying a good book on pawn structures.  Reading through Soltis's Pawn Structure chess and it feels like I'm rediscovering chess as a whole! :)

The English GM who swears by the modern defence is David Norwood.

Interestingly, he is one of he richest chess GM's in the world - but most of his money is not from chess, and he is certainly not a super GM. I have looked at his games a bit too, good fun.

I don't like Modern for improving players, but OK i will simply answer ur question:

Kosten - Dynamic English (much simpler than buying 2,000 dense pages of Marin, yech)

Davies - Starting Out: Modern

I can vouch for the above 2 books, even though i don't like or play these openings.  Avoid buying too many or too thick books, else you are defeating the point of your shortcut openings.

there is a good book on openings recommended by fischer ,the ideas behind the chess openings,by reuben fine.i think he knew what he was talking about.