Books that changed your life and those you hope will change it

This could be fun. There are two parts to the question: 1) Which books changed your chess life, improved your game, and enhanced your enjoyment of chess? 2) Which books on your shelf that you plan to read, or those you are wanting to order, do you hope will change your chess life, your rating, and  enhance your enjoyment of the game? I'll go first. The book that truly turned me on to chess was Cecil Purdy's Guide to Good Chess.  Patrick Wolff's Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess and Susan Polgar's World Champion's Guide to Chess taught me how to play. On my shelf I have high hopes for Nimzowitsch's My System, Stean's Simple Chess,and Vukovic's Art of Attack in Chess. All three are on my "to read very soon" list. What about you? stwils         l

I forgot to say THREE books only in each category. Stwils.

Changed my "chess" life :

Michael Stean's Simple Chess,  Best Lessons of a Chess Coach by Weeramantry and Pawn Power by Kmoch

Have high hopes for:

The Silman books (Complete endgame book, Reassess Your Chess,  the Reassess your chess workbook) assuming I ever get to finishing each of them.

The Bible

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 The thinking man's guide to sacrifice with a view toward the endgame?

Tao Te Ching, My system and Zen and the art of motorcycle maintainance.

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:)

My topic should have been:

WHAT 3 CHESS BOOKS CHANGED YOUR LIFE AND WHAT 3 CHESS BOOKS DO YOU HOPE WILL?

I repeat my authors

1) Cecil Purdy,Patrick Wolff, Susan Polgar

2)N's My System, Stean's Simple Chess, V's the Art of Attack in Chess

My old topic was not clear. I hope this clarifies it.  

 stwils

I should have clarified more: WHAT 3 BOOKS CHANGED YOUR CHESS LIFE... Stwils

Bent Larsen "åbningspillet i skak" A danish book . from 74

in english it is called opening play in chess. I don't know if it published in english. if it is: you should read it.

The other book is not really a chess book but changed my view on chess "The art of learning " Josh Waitzkin. How to deal with the psychology in chess.

I don't know if "changed my chess life" is the term I'd use. The fact that I was willing to seek out good books and try to get as much as I could out of them changed my chess life.

But I guess my answer is a trio of Silmans:

Silman's Complete Endgame Guide has given me more practical, immediate improvement than any other chess source.

I'm 2/3rds of the way through the Amateur's Mind and it's subtly beginning to do its job: Changing the way I look at a game.

Once I get through with that, I have high hopes for Reassess Your Chess.

Anything by Pandolfini. Silman or Ault. My first book was "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess,"which I keep in the bathroom for those long sitting sessions. I was helped a lot by Pandolfini's Endgame Course, Complete Book of Chess Strategy by Silman and The Genesis of Power Chess by Leslie Ault who, coincidentally, ghost wrote the Fischer book. 

Well, the obvious answer for me would be "An Invitation to Chess" by Chernev and Harkness. That was the book that got me started.

As far as improving my play dramatically, it's not a book, but Dan Heisman's Novice Nook column at chesscafe.com has had the biggest impact. There are just a ton of good pieces of advice in there that I highly recommend everyone go back and read all 10 years worth of the archived columns.