I have over 45 chess books but I don't understand a single one of them

Why don't you follow your own advice.  I have already offered advice that is more valid than anything you have written and here you are pontificating like the sun shines from your posterior and bestows rays of golden hope upon all those who behold it.

Please report the matter to the moderators if you think I have bullied anyone in this thread.  I don't think you have either the honesty or the integrity to stand by your empty words.

I have had enough of you, and will ignore your immature nonsense from here on.  You're negativity is toxic.

so lets get this people, the Op an intermediate player states that he is getting nothing from a fairly extensive library and WussBell and his spamming friend Spongey's most helpful contribution is to advocate more and more books.  Seriously?  Was it not Einstein himself who stated that doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results was insanity.  Please judge for yourselves dear reader the validity of this 'helpful', course of action.

pdve wrote (~24 hours ago): "I'm just wondering if players like us ~1500-1600 rated players have any hope of finding instructional material suitable for ourlevel or does every chess book have to be written only for 2000 FIDE+"

About 23 hours ago, I tried (perhaps unsuccessfully) to identify books that might not seem as inappropriate as "Ivan Sokolov's Middlegame booksk which came out recently, Max Euwe and H. Kramer's middlegame books. Mihail Marin's learn from the legends. Gufeld's chess strategy".

pdve wrote (~6 hours ago): "I just got chernev's most instructive games and I gotta say I love that book. ..."

As I suspected neither the honesty nor the integrity to stand behind your words, You accuse people of heinous actions on the basis of little more than flawed reasoning and a very poor grasp of logic and all the time your hypocrisy waving like a huge banner.   Perhaps next time you will be more careful with your accusations and be man enough to stand by them.

Why can you not conduct yourself like a sentient being instead of hiding behind quotes and opinions of others. What are you afraid of? Do you seriously think that learning the Sicilian move by move is helpful to our friend, have you read the book yourself and can personally recommend it? No then why not recommend one that you have read and enjoyed?

Best to ignore the trolls and naysayers who have nothing useful or positive to contribute. They are looking to evoke responses in order to garner attention, which fuels encouragement for them to continue defecating their nonsense and negativity. Without the attention of others to feed on, like weeds deprived of water they will eventually dry up and blow away....

I wouldn’t mind so much Ilovesmetuna but I cannot see how all of these things are simply more than spam.  Does Spongey and WussBell really think that posting reams and reams of books is helpful to someone who already has an extensive library and who gets nothing from it?  How can that be?  Why does shilling for Silman and Watson or chesscafe hold any more meaning to the OP than 'get a book you enjoy? and engage in self analysis'?

RussBell is a mamas boy! Karma will get him for sure! anti-spam bot will get spongey for being a shill! But enough of them!

But some of the other suggestions in the thread were good, slow down, spend time with a book, get out a chessboard and play over the game slowly trying to assimilate the events, choose a book you enjoy, engage in analysis (without a chess engine) its all good stuff and will surely help the OP.

It seemed to me to provide some hint about whether or not IM Lakdawala cares about the quality of his work. I am, of course, not suggesting a Sveshnikov book, but a question has been raised about a Lakdawala book and a general comment made about Lakdawala motivations.

its pleasant to hear you be yourself Spongey, now I know you are human.  Ok i understand it was not directly related to the Op, that's cool.

Sure I think some psychologist did a study and the result was that the more master games you have played through and assimilated the more stronger you become.  Your point is excellent though for it emphasizes that as your time was divided the quality of your study must have taken a hit.

It seems to me that helpful results may come from other activities. See above.

Even chess for dummies is to complicated for me : ( .

pdve wrote (~25 hours ago): "I'm just wondering if players like us ~1500-1600 rated players have any hope of finding instructional material suitable for ourlevel or does every chess book have to be written only for 2000 FIDE+"

About 24 hours ago, I tried (perhaps unsuccessfully) to identify books that might not seem as inappropriate as "Ivan Sokolov's Middlegame booksk which came out recently, Max Euwe and H. Kramer's middlegame books. Mihail Marin's learn from the legends. Gufeld's chess strategy".

pdve wrote (~6 hours ago): "I just got chernev's most instructive games and I gotta say I love that book. ..."

"... Review each of your games, identifying opening (and other) mistakes with the goal of not repeatedly making the same mistake. ... It is especially critical not to continually fall into opening traps – or even lines that result in difficult positions ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2007)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627062646/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman81.pdf

Yeah, Lakdawala is quite a 'prolific' author if that's the word. I just wanted to get a book on practical endgames(many pieces on the board) and not theoretical endgames(Dvoretsky , Mueller-Lamprechet etc,).

I suspect that one generally gets better results by staying away from books that tackle a lot of very different subjects in one volume.

Possibly of interest (in addition to some of the post #5 and post #17 books):
Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Simple-Attacking-Plans-77p3731.htm
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf
Studying Chess Made Easy by Andrew Soltis (2009)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090448/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review750.pdf

Do you already know the few-pieces-on-the-board stuff? I think it is generally believed that one needs to learn a fair amount of few-piece endings before making much progress with many-piece ending study. I think that both the Complete Endgame Course and the First Steps ending book start with few-piece material and work up from there.

"Practical Endgame Play - Beyond the Basics: The definitive guide to the endgames that really matter"by Glenn Flear...

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Endgame-Play-definitive-endgames/dp/1857445554/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524409137&sr=1-1&keywords=practical+endgame+play

Note that Silman's Complete Endgame Course won the ChessCafe.com 2007 book of the year award...

https://www.goodreads.com/award/show/27642-chesscafe-com-book-of-the-year

Also, FYI -  Lakdawala, John Donaldson (who wrote the review on Lakdawala's Sveshnikov book), John Watson and Jeremy Silman are all buddies....

https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-books-and-youth-vs-old-age

Note particularly Silman's comment in the article.....

"I told Lakdawala and Watson that I would come down to San Diego and discuss various issues, including.....chess books (I wanted to know how Cyrus writes 4 books a year).....Shortly after, Donaldson (who lives in San Francisco) agreed to join us."