The book below is very old, but pretty good at explaining the opening principles. The author was one of the world's best players in the 1930s.
Looking for opening concepts
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I hear mixed reviews on that one, and I get the impression it's at a higher level than I am. Most of the negatives seem to be because it's too advanced for the people who don't like it, but the people that love it tend to be higher level players, it seems. I'm about a 1200-1300 level player right now. Would you think it's accessible to me? I'm picking my way through Silman's How To Reassess Your Chess at present, and it's probably a little above me, but I can grok it.
IMO this is the best complete training course for new players available ATM. It has only the things that are necessary about openings at that level, no more or less.
http://www.amazon.com/Build-your-Chess-Artur-Yusupov/dp/1906552010
You can use that in parallel with the great book by Michael Stean "Simple Chess",
http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Chess-Algebraic-Edition-Dover/dp/0486424200
and of course a book with analysed Capablanca games.
I'm looking to pickup my next chess book, and I'm looking in particular at my opening play. I already have a fairly conscise book on openings, but it mostly walks you through the most popular main lines.
What I am looking for is something that will teach principals, not memorization (or dependancy on the book, which keeps being the case for me). I want underlying concepts of a good opening, questions to ask myself to evaluate the situation, what this series of moves sets up for later, etc.
I've heard that Seirawan's Winning Chess Openings is good, and it seems to be in this vein, but I've only read the sample chapter on amazon so far. Does it handle these concepts and principles, or just walk through games by ECO codes like most books? Is there a better one to look at that you have benefitted from, knowing what I'm looking for?
Thanks!