Any advice for chess books

Does anybody know any chess books to improve your game for intermediate or advanced?  Please name them

The problem is, that searching for "Chess Books" in amazon.com comes up with over 2000 results.

I have the same problem. I can find alot of chess books; In fact, too many.

Arent chess books all different? Arent some better than others? 

For me the term "intermediate or advanced player" is not very clear. What is for you an intermediate player? Someone with ELO around 2000? Think on this check list:

1. Do you have a good knowledge on tactics?
2. What about classical and modern strategy?
   
3. Do you have any opening repertoire?
4. Do you know how to play different ending schemes? and more complicated endings?
5. What about pawn structures?
6. Can you read GM's commented games and understand them?

So then you're not looking for books, but book reviews

On Amazon.com there are usually some member reviews with every book which give you an idea of how good it is. It's also worth checking JeremySilman.com and checking his book reviews page. There are hundreds of book reviews there by top reviewers, with good explanations why certain books are good and why others aren't. And like erik said, there are some book reviews on this site as well (but far from as many as on Silman's site )

This is probably the #1 question repeated from one chess forum/website to another. The problem is that it is a practically impossible question to answer. Rather than specific books the best way to solve this problem is to look for books that teach concepts well. First and foremost almost any advanced tactical book must always be in use. To be honest you should use computer program tactical puzzles. This is one area that no player should ever stop studying. Highly recommended is CT ART 3.0 I cannot sing it's praises well enough.

For intermediate to advanced you need to start thinking more conceptually. You want teachers and study materials that present more than memorization as a way to learn.  Try to steer away from over analysis. Two great examples of what I mean are:

1) The Lev Alburt Comprehensive Chess Course. This one you are most likely beyond and may be able to do without, if you don't own it already. Plus you wouldn't need the first two books of this series. I am mentioning this as an example of thematic thinking along with the fact that this series sticks to each point without wondering off to too much lengthy analysis.

2) Van Perlos's Endgame Tactics. This book is really great. The presentation, and the examples stay on topic, and flow nicely from one point to the other perfectly. 

So, look for material that speaks thematically or conceptually and you should do well. The scary part is, from my point of view, there are very few that do this.  

 Interesting point! But to discuss about it, we should first consider which kind of books are available nowadays. A brief list could be:

1. Tactics
2. Strategy
3. Endings
4. Openings
5. Commented games
   

Points 1 and 3 won't change because there is nothing new to discover. Point 2 could change; who knows if we will see a revolution that will provide new strategical concepts and ideas that would allow us to analyse positions with different terms. About point 4, well just take a look at the list of opening novelties are proposed every year! (without them Sahovski informator would be dead , and we would have less trouble to study openings!). I don't know what to say about point 5, it depends on the comments, but if the author of the book analyses some content related to points 2 or 4, maybe we'll have obsolete comments.

Your turn dear reader

I'd suggest Siegbert Tarrasch's the game of Chess & Laskers Manual if you want to learn how to play properly the following books are ones I personally recommend to any Chess Player 1100-1700 and are worth the money......

Paul Kere's Road to the top by Paul Keres

Morphy's games of Chess by Paul Morphy

Blackburnes Chess Games by Henry Blackburne

Botvinnik's 100 Selected Games by Mikhail Botvinik

500 Master Games by Tartakower and Dumont

Laskers greatest chess games 1889-1914 by Fred Rienfeld

Fischers my 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer (the origional one not the butchered revised versions)

Three Hundred Chess games by Siegbert Tarrasch

Zurich 1953 by David Bronstien

Karpovs best games by Anatoly Karpov

My Chess Career by Capablanca

Alexander Alekhines best games by Alexander Alekhine

Logical Chess move by move by Irving Chernev

Reuben Fines Basic Chess Endgames by Reuben Fine.

1001 Brilliant ways to Checkmate by Fred Reinfeld

1001 Brilliant Combinations by Fred Rienfeld

The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal

John Nunns best Games by John Nunn

The art of Chess combination by Znosko Borovsky.

 Erik,

 Your question is more a technical one than just chess related. Already in existence is what is known as e-paper or electronic paper. You can read up more about here. http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci535038,00.html

My assumption is that as long as the material can be presented in a 3 dimensional format, than what we know as books will in fact become obsolete. However, please note that the state of current technology will not do this alone. Computers today provide information in a 2 dimensional format. Based on where the technology is headed, we will most likely see electronic books first where you download the latest novel, via wireless within the electronic book, and then read it as any other book today, just the paper is this new digital format. 

All the Jeremy Silman books.

Reassess Your Chess

The Amateurs Mind

Silmans Complete Endgame Course

When this thread was created, there were hundreds of thousands less chess books than there are now.