The Ideas behind the chess openings

I like the book "The Ideas behind the chess openings" by Reuben Fine. The book explains the ideas and plans of the openings. Do you know any similar book?

A review of FCO in amazon.com:

"This book is a miracle. It's fills a gap between more simple opening encyclopedia like Seirawan's "Winning chess openings", Collins "Understanding the chess openings" and specific opening books. This book is in fact a modern and a more advanced version of Ruben Fines "The ideas behind the chess openings". And lower rated chess players (below 1800) should understand the chess opening plans, rather than memorizing openings.

Many chess players (improvers and club players) have bought a book on a given opening, for later find that opening not suitable for them, a waste of money. So in the beginning of your chess career, you should instead buy only one book.

This book!

As an example, this book will probably give you the same introduction and plans in the Sicilian opening, as Emms "Starting Out-The Sicilian", "Fundamental chess openings" contains almost 60 pages with plans and information about the Sicilian opening. That's more than enough for player rated below 1800.
Strongly recommended!"

You can preview FCO in Amazon. Personally, didn't look that useful to me.

FCO is very nice, but I also think it has an exaggerated reputation. There are several alternatives, similarly good. Great as a general opening reference, but I don't think it's really worth getting it if you already have Fine's book, which serves the same purpose. I think you might like Soltis "pawn structure chess" instead. It's not strictly speaking about opening ideas, but in practice an understanding of the pawn structure is key for understanding the opening and playing the resulting middlegame properly; in fact most examples in the book are from the late opening phase. I personally think that PSC is the book which had the greatest effect on my opening play!

The only problem with Fine's book is that there are gaps simply because it is old.  Try finding something on the Najdorf for instance.  Still a wonderful book and I still use it, but you need something a little more modern as well.  I like FCO.  I also like the much more expensive (even on sale) 4 volume set Chess Opening Essentials.  Multicolor printing, lots of diagrams, etc. but very similar in content to FCO.  I use but recognize the limitations of any general opening book.  Once you're past general ideas and plans then you have to hit a database or 2 to see what's actually being played, and of course the lines peter out after 8 or 10 moves in an encyclopedia.  

Fine wrote another book called Practical Chess Openings a nice servicable manual even if it's in descriptive notation.

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Chess-Openings-Reuben-Fine/dp/4871875342/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375052495&sr=1-1&keywords=practical+chess+openings

The ideas behind the openings remain the same if you know the main line really well and play the openings in the right spirit they were meant to be played in you'll be ok. A big mistake is falling in the trap of memorization trying to cram and cram the brain some more with lines and variations of what this or that GM played or what your computer database says you should play all of that spoils independant thinking and judgement.

Summary:

• The Ideas behind the chess openings (Reuben Fine)
• Fundamental Chess Openings (Paul Van Der Sterren)
• Pawn structure chess (Andrew Soltis)
• Chess Opening Essentials: The Ideas & Plans Behind ALL Chess Openings
• Practical Chess Openings (Reuben Fine)

Thanks.

More ideas in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure

ive not read this, but it seems like exactly the kind of thing you're after.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Chess-Openings-Modern-Comprehensive/dp/190460028X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1375223820&sr=8-5&keywords=chess+openings

It's just the humble opinion of a patzer, but from a quick glance at the free preview i noticed a serious mistake and a few bizarre omissions; it doesn't look great to me.

Looking through that interesting article did I not see the pawn structure of the Benoni:

It was said that the Benoni belongs to the d5 chain, but nothing could be further from reality. There is a white pawn on d5 and an half open e-line which black can use to pressure white. The fianchetto of the DSB for black is important, because it adds a lot of pressure on the position of white.

That surprises me. I also miss the Grunfeld exchange variation pawn structure, which has a half open b-file for white and a half open d-file for black.

Is it correct that those pawn structures are missing? Can somebody explain reasons for it?

I don't know if anyone's still following this thread, but are any of these books suitable for someone rated under 1000?

Good to know. Thanks.

Any book on chess openings is obsolete while being printed.
Much about openings is fashion and opinion.
What was true yesterday is false today.
What is true today will be false tomorrow.
The best way is to use a data base and study the grandmaster games. The ideas become apparent from the games.

@ricksterman, for opening books for the under-1000 player, I'd recommend the following:

- "Discovering Chess Openings" by John Emms

- "Winning Chess Openings" by Yasser Sierawan

and

- "Logical Chess: Move by Move" by Irving Chernev