Good Chess Reading

Hi All

 I am a new chess player. I know the rules quite well, and all the basics. However i need a book to start my serious chess training. I thought of buying Capablanca's book-Chess Fundamentals, but i wanted some more opinions of whats a good beginner to intermediate book.

 Thanks

 Nadeem

You may want to look into The Winning Chess series by Yasser Seirawan published by Microsoft Press.  They are not comprehensive but go into enough depth to be useful to the beginning to intermediate player. I find that sometimes when books go into numerous variations they tend to confuse.

There are lots of books out there so dive in.  I look forward to hearing from other members about their recommendations.

Bruce Pandolfini's books are also good. He seems to have hundreds. Laszlo Polgar has a huge book of tactics problems that's a good investment.  My votes for the best chess books are the ones written by two of the greatest: The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal and My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer, which is unfortunately and inexplicably out of print.

You asked such a fine question!  I am still working on this myself, so I am not qualified to say much, but I will say something anyway!  I got some well-intended advice when I started that put me on the wrong track, and I got a lot of wrong ideas. Don't let this happen to you.  Find a local chess teacher who is a master level player or higher.  Pay him/her to help you get a good start.  The advice you get will be more sound than listening to a bunch of amateurs like me.  But if you insist on having some advice from someone like me, then try spending 90% of your time on tactics until you get to be a good player (whatever that is).  There is an excellent tactics software called "CT-ART", and it doesn't cost very much.  Memorizing a bunch of opening moves doesn't mean much if you are going to drop a piece two moves later.  I have all the books mentioned above, and I agree, they are great.  My books are in very good condition, and a friend of mine, who is good player, says they should show more signs of wear if I want to improve.  (Take that for whatever it's worth, ha!)  Good luck, and please drop me a line and let me know how you made out.