Learning the english opening

I have played e4 all my life and I think it is time to switch to the english opening so I can improve in my positional chess. My question is what are the best books on the english opening repertoire, on positional play, and model players who play the english all the time.

Also are there any english lines that lead to opposite side castling or attacking chess?

I am around 1850 rapid chess.com

Opposite side castling is rare.  Most games both sides castle Kingside.

The best books on the English for White are the three by Mihail Marin.

1c4/nf3 by christof sielecki is a 2 part book. I have both. Its taken me about 5 months to go through 400 variations out of 1400. He has good explanations of why he recommends certain moves/move orders. It will take me a long time to master this opening lol it really is a lifetime repitiore

"what are the best books on the english opening" ++ the best book is not a book but a data base. Look at recent grandmaster games and study those. Look at the 2 english World Championship games Carlsen-Caruana
"on positional play" ++ "My System" - Nimzovich
"model players who play the english all the time" Polugaievsky, Korchnoi

"are there any english lines that lead to opposite side castling or attacking chess?" No

Actually, if you are looking for recent and a book appropriate for a sub-master, Hansen's "The Full English Opening" (or some similar title - Yellow cover - may be his best option.

Not true at all - the English opening is notoriously complicated and hard to understand, especially for a lower rated player. Pointing him to grandmaster games and saying figure it out from that is like pointing him to examples of rocket prototypes and saying you figure it out if he asked for advice on learning to construct rockets.  

Not only is the English complicated (need to have a reply for 1...e5; c5; Nf6) but you also have to deal with transpositions into things like the QGD and KID. Learning a line against the Sicilian is nothing compared to this to-do!

... *realizes that I learned the English from scratch and that may not have been so good*

I cannot say I have gone thru his 2 books, though I assume it goes thru the typical Chess-Stars template (I have the one on Bc4 against the open games - Bishop's Opening and Slow Italian).  So I cannot say what I think of his, but even Marin tried to do a complete non-d4, but said himself that if you want anything tangible, you have to be willing to transpose to the Kings Indian Defense, and then you have to have a major Non-English option against e6 and d5.  Marin goes for the Reti, which is fine, but it is not the English.  The other legit options are the QGD or Catalan.  Lines like 1.c4 e6 2.g3 (or 2.Nc3) d5 3.cxd5 exd5 4.d3 (or 4.Bg2 with no d4 if 2 g3) are no good for White.

I lot of c4 theory overlaps with d4 theory and you can start off with the English and transpose into one of several d4 openings.

Most players move from 1.d4 to 1.c4 rather than straight from 1.e4 to 1.c4

A lot of higher level players play 1.c4 or 1.Nf3 to specifically avoid certain QP openings, which I find more legit than going all out to avoid d4.

A typical case is to transpose to the KID, QGD (or Catalan if you play English lines with g3), Slav, Dutch, etc, and specifically avoid 3 openings in particular:

Grunfeld - Anti-Grunfeld typically goes 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.cxd5 Nxd5 4.e4 Nxc3 5.dxc3! Qxd1+ 6.Kxd1.  Sometimes g6 by Black and Nf3 by White is added, particularly with 1.Nf3 players, like 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.dxc3! Qxd1+ 7.Kxd1.

Nimzo-Indian - Typical is the Anti-Nimzo 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nf3 or Mikenas-Flohr 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4

Benoni - The anti-Benoni can come in 2 move orders:  1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nf3 or 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4.  Popular is a Gambit line for Black - 3...cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d5 6.cxd5 Bc5.

Thanks, avoiding transpositions to d4 openings is something that I would like to do. Would definitely check out

All opening preparation becomes a kind of rock-paper-scissors-liard-spock situation. It's important to just play what you think you want and learn from that the hard way.

The only reason I really play 1.c4! the English Opening is to transpose into a Vampire Opening or to a Vampire Gambit / Vampire Double Gambit / Vampire Triple Gambit or to an Indian Game : Accelerated Variation or to an Modern Defence : Three Pawns Attack with 2.f4! or to a Queens Gambit or to a Queens Gambit Declined or maybe even to a Reti Opening : Reti Gambit or to an English Opening : Symmetrical , Wing Gambit or maybe even to a Kings Pawn Opening : Whale Variation if I feel like it!

Mate, you're my rating, you shouldn't know all of these openings

How are they not serious ? @ IM Pfren

Also @TommyPebbles_07 what do you actually mean by "I'm you're rating , I shouldn't know all of these openings" ?

@ pfren Not ok to transpose?

Lol...

Because you're just memorizing. You don't WHY you're playing them. You're that type of person who says they know the Sicilian Dragon when in reality, you know the first two moves.