Recommended starter books

What would you recommend for players up to 1500? The first third of Silman's Complete Endgame Course would seem good.

I would recommend "Logical chess move by move" by Irving Chernev. It contains basic e4, d4 games, and the author explains why players made such a move.

I was thinking specifically of endgame study.

Silman's Complete Endgame, the first 2-3 chapters(U1000, E,D and maybe C chapter) are great to that level.

If you can find his older book, Essential Chess Endings, Move by Move, Vol 1, is also really great and a short read. Vol 2, which is not by him, is a much lesser book.

Not a die-hard Silman fan, but I did find the Complete Endgame Book an easy read, and helpful. Covers a good amount of the basic understanding of Endgame Principles.  

This book is a very good starting endgame book. 

Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge   By Yuri Averbach

I decided it’s time for me to advance my endgame knowledge beyond the basics. I have learned a few basics from Silman’s book How to Reassess Your Chess, Chess Life articles, and other odds and ends over the years, but never really studied. Silman’s book opened my eye’s to the importance of study in this area. I do have some books that I consider good. Pandolfini’s Endgame Course is for sure the first thing I’m going to read. It is basic, with well written descriptions. I like the way it has one position per page with a full but not overly wordy explanation. Next will be Jeremy Silman’s Essential Chess Endings Explained Move by Move. I also own Irving Chernev’s Practical Chess Endings and 200 Brilliant Endgames. I wanted to see what other books looked like. So I went to my library and checked out the following.

Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual

Van Perlo’s Endgame Tactics

Lev Alburt & Nikolay Krogius’s - Winning Chess Endgames – Just The Facts!

Glenn Flear’s - Test Your Endgame Thinking

Bruce Pandolfini’s – Endgame Workshop Principles for the practical Player

John Emms – Starting Out: Minor Piece Endgames

Efstratios Grivas’s – Practical Endgame Play – Mastering the basics

After skimming these books I’m pretty happy with my plan. I do think after I get through Pandolfini’s Endgame Course I’ll go to Flear’s - Test Your Endgame Thinking. Then Silman’s Essential Chess Endings Explained Move by Move. If I decide to continue after that I’ll go to Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual. So that’s my plan. I thought I would share it here and see if it inspires anyone else to undertake study of this phase of the game. Also I thought someone might want to recommend other materials.

If you can find them, Mednis has 3 books(all very short 100-150 pages each) on Rook endings, bishop endings, and knight endings. I read the entire rook and most, if not all, of the bishop one and half the knight one.

Guess which ending I have the most trouble with?

Seirawan's beginner endgame book is good, but it is just that, a beginner endgame book.

Silman's Complete Endgame course advances far beyond Seirawan and does so by rating. It really is a good book.

Dvoretsky and Muller are far more detailed than Silman but can definitely bog a beginner/intermediate player down.

Ah the knights? Mednis wrote a article years ago for Chess Life that gave me a near win against a expert and a master. It was called The Misplaced Piece and I've kept it all these years. I'll look for those books.