It is tricky.  You'll spend enough time translating that you'll get frustrated & just use modern books. 

I tried it by printing out a sheet of what DN calls all the squares, then going through the book.  I spent as much time figuring out the moves as I did thinking about the chess.

Check out the board.  Each square refers to two locations depending on if you're looking at it from white's or black's viewpoint.  That's confusing.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/English_Descriptive_Chess_Notation.svg/360px-English_Descriptive_Chess_Notation.svg.png

I can read that game in descriptive and then write the game in algebraic without looking at a chess board. It is helpful to know both.

1.e5 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4 4.dxe5 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 dxe5 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Qb3 Qe7 8.Nc3 c6 9.Bg5 b5 10.Nxb5 cxb5 11.Bxb5+ Nbd7 12.O-O-O Rd8 13.Rxd7 Rxd7 14.Rd1 Qe6 15.Bxd7 Nxd7 16.Qb8+ Nxb8 17.Rd8#.

It is Morphy's Opera Game.

You don't need to know all the squares by name until you have to put a piece on it. The one problem is that the ranks on the board are from the perspective of each player.

They used to write:

"Pawn to Queen's the fourth; King's Knight to Bishop's the third"
instead of 1. d4 Nf6

Books from the early 20th century would have  1. P-Q4 Kt-KB3 where the Kt and K sometimes leads to confusion. You just have to be very precise.

No, but I'm saying that learning/using descriptive notation is a cakewalk compared to the work and effort of entering variations from a book into a computer (or the board.)

I prefer descriptive notation myself because it is easier for me to visualize the moves. Nonetheless if you have books written in discriptive notation I suggest a little trick. Most games in chess books are prefaced by the names of the players, the event and the year of play. Just find the game in a good data base and you will have the algebraic version. Also you can now take the algebraic PGN and put it into your favorate GUI and you can play through the game without trouble on your computer.   

What's so tricky about descriptive notation anyway? The name of the files are pretty intuitive. They are named after the piece that start on it. Q/K = Queen/King side,  RNB = Rook, kNight, Bishop. That would make QN = Queenside Knight's file, KB = Kingside Bishop's file and so on..

You know how to set up a chessboard, don't you? It even uses the same letters to refer to each piece than algebraic notation! Just keep in mind rank are from that player's point of view and you are ready to tackle any book featuring it!

okay, so someone else finds it tricky lol

Yeah I thought about that as well, but when it offers variations and stuff then it gets a lil hectic 

I learned chess on computer in the middle 1990s and all I had encounteredfor a while was short algebraic. But the nature of my hobby required me to become fluent in all kinds of notations in many different languages, none of which ever seemed as "natural" to me as algebraic does.  However, on a difficulty level easy-hard on a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 1.  It's extremely easy to learn descriptive -or any other notation for that matter.  However, I would also say it's just a tiny bit more confusing and easier to make a mistake with descriptive, but that becomes less an issue rather quickly as you use it.

I see no reason for anyone to fear descriptive notation.

Thank you for your helpful input! Helps a lot 

I'm an educated adult, and I WAYYY prefer the digital clocks to the analog ones. I can read the analog ones, but having used a digital for so long, it's a total annoyance for me to have to use an analog clock. 

For 5' or less blitz, I really hate analog clocks! I'd rather use my phone and a 'chess clock' app.

Suit yourself. But I should add that my chess club has a whole bunch of digital clocks no one knows how to set. Instruction manuals are of little use BTW.

You should fear

Descriptive Notation

It is like opening pandora's box.

If I was you I wouldn't try to enter!

You have been warned!

Don't say we didn't warn you!

I don't know about that book, but I just realized that it might be of interest to mention that there HAS been an algebraic version of the two-volueme set, The Middlegame by Euwe and Kramer.