My coach does not like Jeremy Silman...

Indeed, there is much to be gained from My System conceptually -even without playing through the variations.

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exchange the book cover with another one and let him have a glance.

I'm actually reading The Amateur's Mind right now, and it easily is one of the best chess books I've seen. While I feel like it targets a bit weaker players, it still has great insights on common mistakes in one's thinking process all of us make every now and then. I wish I had gotten this book back when I was only starting to learn the theory, it would have been a very nice find.

I also don't think your coach's opinion on this book matters. Even being your coach, he still doesn't know you as well as you know yourself. If you feel like these books help you improve, then, of course, you should read them, and if he is a good coach, he will accept it.

As a coach myself (and as one who has taken lessons from a variety of coaches) I totally disagree with this. The student should follow the coach's instructions and not "go behind their back." If the student feels that something other than what the coach suggests will work better for them, get a different coach. It's better for both student and teacher that way.

What I mean is, coaching should be a two-sided process, and the coach shouldn't be a sole actor of the whole process. A coach and a student may disagree on something, and that is fine. A coach should direct a student, not control him. That is my personal opinion as someone with a strong academic background and teaching experience (although not in chess). Controlling coaches may sometimes do more harm than good. It is good that the coach in question expressed his opinion on Jeremy Silman, but, in my opinion, it should not cause the student to avoid reading the book, if he/she thinks the book can be helpful - although, of course, he/she should be upfront with the coach about this, rather than doing it behind his back.

Yeah, I mean you hire a chess coach to help you improve, not mandate you. He's working for you. You should still be allowed to actually have agency. The reason that instructions cannot be absolute is that people make decisions more with bias than evidence, and you might miss out on a great experience with Jeremy Silman books if you don't get to read them just because you're coach doesn't like them. If you truly are interested in the books, and find knowledge in them that is useful, there is no real argument that the books can "hurt" you. It's not like you're trying powerful drugs or something. 

Has there been a DragonSavage post in this thread since October of 2015?

Sure, there can be a back-and-forth, I agree with that, and I also agree that the student should be up front about other things they are doing.

Generally, I stand by my main point though: if coach and student are not on the same page, it's probably not a good fit -- which does not mean either side should be assigned blame.

Yes, the coach works for you, but the student needs to allow the coach to do his work, otherwise it's not fair to expect optimal results from that coach.

And following another plan really can do the student harm, especially an opening or middlegame book, since the thinking process may get confused. A tactics book or a book on technical endgames (King and Pawn, Rook and Pawn, Bishop vs. Knight, etc.) should not be a problem, and your coach should encourage you to study good material on these topics.

So what? Lots of us don't care much for J. Sliman. 

Dreadful, on par with schiller.

If the Silman books work for you, that is 95% of what matters, and your coach should take note of that and adjust their coaching accordingly. The Silman books are obviously reputable (it's not as if you want to use Hal Halfwit's 'My Opening Will Make You a Grandmaster' web page) and so your coach could learn something about how you learn and improve from the experience. Note that the issue is not at all about the intrinsic merits of IM Silman's work, but about your relationship with it. 

Anybody who doesn't like Jeremy Silman as a coach or human is either jealous or a shape changing lizard or both.

I bet your coach secretly studies Silman and then acts like he came up with the ideas.

My advice is to study your Siman books and not be influenced by the opinion of others.

All the best with your progress.

Your faithful servant

The Duck

My guess is, people who don't like Silman are of the same ilk that love to hate anything it's popular because it's popular, to appear original and contrarian. In doing so, they, ironically, try to become part of a group that is popular for trying hard not to be popular. 

Silman will not teach you to be a grandmaster, but it makes so sense to say a developing player shouldn't read him, or that it won't improve him. Does anyone really think that learning how to evaluate the imbalances of a chess position, in clear English in a way developing players can understand, and to actually plan, is a bad thing? The "spoon fed" argument never made any sense. So things...should be as hard as possible? Do you carry your water up from the ravine each day to wash? you shit in an outhouse? You cut wood and burn it in a log cabin to stay warm? Ride a horse to work? You can make things as hard as possible. But the people who learn to do things more efficiently will pass you by in the arms race that is life. 

I have nothing personal against Silman. But his books either didn't help or, in the case of How To Reassess Your Chess, hindered my development when I studied them.

Others' mileage may vary, but In my view it makes plenty of sense to say a developing player should not read his books (or, at least the three I have read).

Hindered??? Pray do tell how...in enough detail to make it believable.

Did you read his 'How to reassess your chess' without actually reassessing your chess? 

To summarize and expand upon what I wrote in a previous post:

The Amateur's Mind was amusing but ultimately not helpful in teaching me to play better. The concept is interesting, but I don't remember any advice in the book that sticks out in helping me play better. Now, I read this book in the late 90s, but plenty of books I read 20 years ago are memorable. Maybe this approach helped others, but I'm a player who responds better to being told WHAT to do rather than being told what NOT to do.

Silman's Complete Endgame Course is a decent book -- NOT a great book -- and I agree that this one would not harm anyone who read it. Someone new to studying endgames would even learn some new things from it. But I read this book when I was ~1900, and I had already studied several (far superior) endgame books. 

That brings me to How to Reassess Your Chess, 3rd edition. I was recommended this book by a longtime NYC 2000-2200 player who often said "you need books with words" -- meaning, explanatory prose instead of a mass of variations. This is a player that to this day I highly respect, but I have come to not completely agree with him: one needs books with to the point prose.

Reassess has good intentions, the problem is the games/themes presented usually have competing themes present and a developing player (I was 1300-1600 at the time) doesn't have the experience to sift through which "imbalances" take priority. I found myself going through a mental checklist trying to weigh the factors, which totally messed up my thinking. Thank goodness I had read those endgame books and From the Middlegame to the Endgame by Mednis, or I would have had an even harder time winning games than I already did. And no, the Silman endgame book had not been published yet. But I had Mednis, Znosko-Borovsky, and Euwe/Hooper. 

Thank goodness Euwe (Judgment and Planning in Chess) and Stean (Simple Chess) got me back on track. These books teach you to understand positional elements IN ISOLATION and never give you a position with lots of competing ideas.

"Jeremy Silman's HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS is an example of a good book which explains many important ideas in clear terms." - GM John Nunn (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708095832/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review769.pdf
Silman: The Amateur's Mind
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708094419/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/ammind.pdf
"... Silman’s Complete Endgame Course ... has already caught on with the average player in a big way, confirming Silman's status as the king of instructional writers. ..." - IM John Watson (2007)

http://www.theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/theres-an-end-to-it-all

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708103149/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review594.pdf

Quotes by two authors whose books I can't stand because they talk talk talk and don't get to the point. This is a criticism of their writing style, not their chess qualifications. Once again, others' mileage may vary.