Classic versus modern instructional books

I have tons of books, but I'm learning a tremendous amount from the videos right here on chess.com. Within the past few weeks Sam showed us a game in which Kasparov offered every piece he had as a sacrifice but won an incredible victory anyway...and then in another lecture we saw how Kasparov had Karpov totally on the ropes, no good moves available at all, just from occupying the best squares. This stuff simply doesn't shine through printed pages. You have to see it in motion. Right now, however, I'm enjoying Bill Wall's "500 English Miniatures." The very first game shows Jon Speelman winning with moves not one of which I could guess.

Ricardo_Morro, re. the elusive Polish writer, Dawid Przepiorka has a couple of games collection books, but I don't think he wrote an instructional manual.  Perhaps you mean Sam Palatnik who is Ukrainian, and co-wrote Chess Strategy for the Tournament Player and Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player with Lev Alburt.  The Georgian American GM Roman Dzindzichashvili and Russian trainer Roman Pelts also collaborate with Lev Alburt sometimes.  Jan Przewoznik is a Polish IM who wrote How to think in chess, but I think that's fairly recent.

Take note that he is remembering a book that was old 45 years ago.

OK, how about Eugene Znosko-Borovsky then?  I believe he's Russian not Polish, but he wrote a lot of readable manuals:  The Middlegame in Chess, How not to play chess, and The Art of Chess Combination.  Savielly Tartakower is a Polish writer from around that time.  He wrote 500 Master Games, 100 Master Games and A Breviary of Chess.  Or maybe he's talking about Hans Kmoch's Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces.

I can't place the book with the clues.

This sounds like a job for...Superman...I mean Aansel.

It seems most every book has been in his hands.

The Czech player Karel Opocensky had an English book called Kings, Queens and Pawns.

According to wikipedia, Petrosian was most influenced by Nimzowitsch (most people know this), but as Tricklev said, he also read Spielmann. So, Tricklev was right. Also, Petrosian was known to be tactically adept, simply because he halted so many other players' tactics in advance. So, it's important to acknowledge that Petrosian read Spielmann.

Chess strategy will never change as long as we have the same rules. (How the pieces move)

The only thing that changes is opening theory. Maybe an opening line that was considered good let's say 50 years ago is already considered bad, because they found a way against that line.
So, if you want to learn openings, then modern books are definitely better.
If you want to learn chess strategy, endgames, than the old books are as good as modern books. There are better and worse writers in the present, and there were in the past. (So the quality of a strategy book is independent from when it was written)

What do you guys think about 'Masters of the Chess board' and 'Simple Chess?' I hear these are quite good.

Both are excellent.