Easy one. YOu don't even need to buy anything.
1. Chesstempo. SPend 80% of your study time solving these and getting your rating as high as you can there.
2. St Louis chess videos. (In particular Akobian's videos). Will teach you all the nontactical stuff, esp basic strategy and development on a easy-to-understand level. Spend the remaining 20% of your study time there.
The books become a lot more useful once you're like 1300+ in blitz rating, or 1600+ standard rating, as you can see more specific lines and strategies, but at lower than that level, the generalized info is more valuable and useful.
If you will take the time to click through my games and then post I'd appreciate it. So I would like 3 books that you would personally recommend me and why as a beginner who plans to be intermediate this year. I was a 400 to a 1100 and I'm proud of that ( I battled the bottle too) but now my goal is 1500. USCF. So what would YOU recommend me. I plan to take the time I spent drinking into chess so that's a lot of time... Thanks guys and gals and yall