I find opening books really boring. Solution?

The only other book on the London I know of in the last decade or more is the Lakdawala one, which also advocates 2.Bf4 against 1...d5.

Lakdawala, BTW, is definitely one of the most readable and accessible writers among chess authors.  Maybe second only to Matthew Sadler in this respect, although much more prolific in terms of output.

The guy who wrote Win With the London (Johnsen, I think?) also did a great book on the Stonewall Dutch, if you like his style.

If you have any interest in the KID or the French, the guys who play those openings tend to be fanatical about them, and a lot of the time that leads to better books and better writing.  You'd be spoiled for choice if you chose to make a repertoire out of those two defenses.

People rhapsodize about Marin and Avrukh, but to me they are probably only great authors if you happen to be master level or better.  They're (IMO) guilty of leaning too heavily toward theory over explanation to be of much use to mortals.  Which isn't really a criticism, since appealing to high level players was probably their goal.  It's just an observation for the clubber.

I also find opening books very boring.  I find chessbase dvd's very good as well as a host of opening videos on this site.  Honestly the opening isn't to important until 2000+.  I am +2000 otb, i get in trouble in the openings all the time but I outplay people below 2000 through tactical and positional means.  Most games below 2200 are decided by tactics and people blundering pieces and pawns so I would focus on that if you want to see the quickeset improvment.  There does seem to be a love of openings on this site between the lower rated players.

I'm not trying to be so ambitious with openings, just the basic ideas of the main line will come in handy, and some common variations. As I said, I read many other types of books. Thanks for the advice though, I like chessbase books since I don't have to play the variations on a board myself, but I haven't tried any videos.

Lakdawala does have some coverage on 2 Bf4 but most of his book is on 2 Nf3 3 Bf4. There is a book on the London written by Schmuecker that came out in 2009 (translated from German into English) but it only covers 1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 3 Bf4. He doesn't believe in the London against ...d6 ..g6 setups. The book by Soltis on the London came out too long ago (1993) and is only on 2 Nf3 3 Bf4 but it does have a middlegame idea against the King's Indian Defense I haven't seen in any of the other books. I have all the London books because I used to play it a lot. I'm considering taking up 1 b3 more often now though. But for the heck of it I might play nothing but the Hippo as white and black for a year. 

Unless you have a realistic hope of becomming a titled player (very few people do) an option is to simply avoid them?
Ofcourse knowing theory in a certain opening can help you once in a while but when you are rated <2000 Elo the problem is if you had spent that time studying tactics and endgames etc. (ie. chess skill and understanding) you would of likely yielded the same result if not better and even have improved as a chessplayer.

There's the question how important the opening is to you. I don't know about you but 4 out of 5 it's the late middlegame to endgame where I either lose the plot or outplay my opponent.
At the <2000 Elo level a lot of mistakes are made and games are still often won/drawn/lost from completely lost/won positions and all that hard studied openingtheory that SHOULD of gotten you some strategical advantage turned out to be worth very little.

Baddogno wrote "play the engine", I think this is forbidden.

Ahh, 2200ismygoal just beat me to it.

I have nothing smart to say so I just shut up then I guess.

Opening books are supposed to be boring. Otherwise everyone would be Expert strength or better.

Here's a nice idea: Basically, each time the book presents a new opening, search up a video of it on Youtube and watch it. then, you can also watch blitz matches of that opening being used.

This is what I do, it is much easier for me to watch videos that read a boring book.

This is because most of the book is about lines that begin 1...Nf6, since most games begin that way.

He recommends, without exception, 2.Bf4 against ...d5 lines when possible.  The only flies in that ointment, which are noteworthy precisely because they cause situations where black can move-order white out of his preferred repertoire, are highlighted under a chapter which proves this point, because he titles it, "An Inconvenient Move Order."

By this, of course, he refers to 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 (which he prefers because of the rest of the repertoire choices) ...d5.

Against this, he recommends 3.Bf4, then if black continues down the path with 3...c5, heading toward the Qc1 bind, he advises 4.dxc5, taking it "out of theory."

It is only against this move order he recommends anything but 2.Bf4, and for exactly the reasons you suggest it can get one into positional difficulty.  Lakdawala is aware of this, and makes repertoire suggestions to avoid it.

Why is this important?  Because if you're making book suggestions based on a premise that only one author deals with certain material, it is best to point out that other authors do, as well.  Especially when they're really good authors.  I'd go so far as to recommend both books.  The London isn't all that great, but both these books are.

Hire a chess coach, instead of wasting time with this thread.  Simple.

I'm personally done with this thread, but I like hearing what people have to say. And not everyone has a convenient chess club near them or can afford a coach.

Play a universal opening system, and learn to (essentially) bypass the first 20 move of the game.  Even the Hippo opening will give you that.

Very Simple.

I don't believe in universal openings. I don't have anything against them, but why play any old opening when you can play what's believed to be the very best moves you can make (main line openings). Just seems counter intuitive to me is all.

There is no difference between optimal moves, sound moves, and unsound but testing moves, unless you are playing GM's.

Sigh....I know English isn't your native tongue, but really, just stop already with this nonsense.  Only you of the 7 million or so members here fails to understand that "play the engine" means play AGAINST the engine.  

Indeed it is not my native language, but missing one word ("against") does not help. Have a good day!

Yep, pretty ambiguous on my part:

I further suggested that one of the reasons I like HIARCS is because it's easy to set up common openings to practice against.  Where does Chess.com come into any of this?

I completely agree. But there is a playable move and there's a good move, and again, why play something when you know you have something better? Counter intuitive is the key word here.