Chess book curriculum for getting back into chess?

I haven't played a serious OTB game for 15 years. At several points in time, I wanted to get back into chess and bought a few books, but aside from creating accounts on Chess.com and Lichess and solving a bunch of puzzles, nothing much happened.

Now I want to study chess seriously again, so I want to figure out in what order to study the books that have accumulated over the years. The order I have established so far is as follows:

1. The Soviet Chess Primer by Ilya Maizelis. Goal: fill any gaps in my chess knowledge after 15 years without serious play.
2. Lekker schaken 3 by van Wijgerden & Brunia. A shortened version of part 3 in the Steps method. This volume covers opening principles, various tactics (discovered attack, mate in two, skewers, defending against pins), the square rule and king and pawn endgames, badly positioned pieces, simplifying to a pawn endgame.
3. Lekker schaken 4 by van Wijgerden & Brunia. A shortened version of part 4 in the Steps method. This volume covers a lot of the same topics as part 3, but on a more advanced level. There's a bit more strategy (weak pawns, strong squares, endgame strategy) and the queen versus promoting pawn endgame.
4. Lekker schaken 5 by van Wijgerden & Brunia. A shortened version of part 5 in the Steps method. This volume covers a similar mixture of topics, but there is more strategy and attacks on the king's position.
5. Chess Psychology: The will to win! by William Stewart. This would be a re-read. It's not really about psychology but more about how to study and your initial opening repertoire.
6. Rapid Chess Improvement by Michael de la Maza. This would be a re-read.
7. Logical Chess Move by Move by Irving Chernev. Could be studied in parallel with some of the books above or below.
8. Chess Tactics for Champions by Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. Introduces tactical patterns by theme; includes chapter on defensive tactics; no set of mixed problems. (Re-study)
9. Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman. Introduces tactical patterns by theme; chapter 6 contains mixed puzzles. (Re-study)
10. The Power of Pawns: Chess Structures Fundamentals for Post-Beginners by Jörg Hickl.
11. Looking for Trouble: Recognizing and Meeting Threats in Chess by Dan Heisman. Learn to see whether your moves and tactics are safe.
12. Back to Basics: Openings by Carsten Hansen. Not so much to study opening theory but to find alternative openings to those suggested by Stewart. Also covers opening principles.
13. Erfolg im Endspiel by Y. Averbakh / J. Awerbach. A basic introduction to endgames.
14. Praktische schaaklessen 4: theoretische en praktische eindspelen ("Practical chess lessons: theoretical and practical endgames") by Max Euwe. 
15. Praktische schaaklessen 5: oordeel en plan: de strategie van het eindspel ("Judgement and Planning in Chess") by Max Euwe. A book about strategy.
16. Praktische schaaklessen 6: hogeschool van het eindspel ("Endgame university") by Max Euwe.

I have lots of other books that I don't know where to fit in or that may serve as alternatives to some of those above:

• The first three volumes of Artur Yusupov training course (titled Tigersprung auf DWZ 1500 in German),
• Silman's Complete Endgame Course, 
• Endgame Workshop by Bruce Pandolfini (not to be confused with Pandolfini's Endgame Course), 
• Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games by László Polgár,
• The World’s Most Instructive Amateur Game Book by Dan Heisman, 
• The Improving Chess Thinker by Dan Heisman, 
• The Improving Annotator by Dan Heisman,
• Mein System + Die Praxis meines Systems by Nimzowitsch,
• Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953 by David Bronstein,
• Best Lessons of a Chess Coach by Weeramantry & Eusebi.
• Chess Exam and Training Guide by Igor Khmelnitsky. (Put aside for when I have studied more and played more games and I find I'm reaching a plateau.)

So, what do you think? Does the order make sense? Should I leave some of those books out? Replace some of them with books from the second list?

Update 16.04.2026:

A few other books I own:

• Chess Training Pocket Book by Lev Alburt: handy format (indeed, a "pocket book") but seems a tad too difficult for real pattern recognition training. Dan Heisman recommends starting with the following puzzles: 5, 15, 18, 26, 27, 39, 63, 68, 75, 80, 82, 105, 109, 118, 125, 128, 129, 133, 163, 203, 206, 238, 242, 247, 265, 280.
• Back to Basics: Strategy by Valeri Beim. This looks like a good first introductory strategy book, just like Hickl's book, listed above.
• How to Become a Deadly Chess Tactician by David LeMoir. The Level 1 puzzles in this book may be feasible; the Level 2 and Level 3 puzzles would need to wait for a later stage.
• Rubinstein: Move by Move by Zenón Franco. Could be a good first book on an eminently positional player.

This was my first post on these forums. Is is too long or do people think studying from books is old-fashioned?

There is a separate Chesscom forum for books, sets, etc. Your post is truncated for me but I am on the mobile app. The Steps books are supposed to be good. Soviet Chess Primer is good. To really learn from books, I think you must treat them like serious textbooks and make an effort to solve each position before reading the solution. To do that several times with these books will take you a long time, so do that before buying more. If you plan to play online speed chess then tactical board vision and time management are very important.

If you read those books while running on a treadmill, it will go faster.

Books are definitely the way to improve the quickest (except for OTB) it's the right approach. I've never read the books you've mentioned so can't comment on them but any books will help you improve really

Throw those books into a metal garbage can and light a fire to keep warm while you go watch YouTube videos and Levy. That's how all the kool kids do it these days.

"To really learn from books, I think you must treat them like serious textbooks ...": that's the idea and that's what I'm doing with The Soviet Chess Primer at the moment. So far, I've spent four hours on the first 50 page of this 400-page book.

"If you plan to play online speed chess then tactical board vision and time management are very important." The plan is to get back to a brick-and-mortar chess club and to play mainly classical time controls. Online, I'm not playing anything faster than rapid and I want to become active in one or two of the slow chess clubs on this site.

To respond to ho-nk's comment: I have watched a number of YouTube videos and they may be entertaining but they tend to lead to passive consumption. I learn more from books.

4 hours for 50 pages is way too fast

Set up the positions on a real board and don't move until you've calculated every variation. Not just the mainline, you've gotta calculate all your opponents possible responses

What I hadn't stated is that I'm not a true beginner; I was a chess club member for a few years in my teenage years and am used to solving chess puzzles just from diagrams (or online on Lichess). In the first two chapters of Maizelis's primer, only two puzzles required a real board and pieces. The first 50 pages include Dvoretsky's foreword, Lasker's foreword and an explanation of the rules of chess, chess notation and other basics, which I can just zip through. The later chapters will obviously require a slower tempo.

Here's the first puzzle that required a board because I couldn't solve it (I can't upload images yet):

• White: Ke8, Bd4, Nh6,
• Black: Kh8, pawns h7, g7

Challenge: mate in three.

Heh that took me about 5 mins to solve blindfold. The problem is I kept visualising my king on d8 instead of e8 for some reason

Bf6 gxf6 Kf8 f5 Nf7#

I sold my copy of the Soviet Chess Primer a while ago. Did you solve all the "fun exercises" in the "entertainment pages" - I recall some which would be difficult in that time.

B-Kt2,

I still haven't finished the second chapter (not much time today). I'll post an update when I have finished a few chapters.

The example I posted in my previous message (and a variation on it) was the only I couldn't solve so far, but I expect a few other difficult ones in the next chapters.