Is there still a place for books in chess study?

Pretty sure that's not what Silman says in his endgame book

It is not.

Silman says that you should work through all sections up to your current rating class. I disagree, however. I think you should work through all sections up through one rating class higher.

I also find that Silman’s book is quite good for covering basic knowledge, but that more depth can be beneficial. I find such depth in Dvoretsky.

Good books are incredibly dense sources of information. There's nothing that comes close to replacing them.

The quality of information in books cannot be replaced. And yet, video presentations also offer qualities that books cannot replicate.

Those who eschew one media in favor of the other reduce their own potential.

When I was still new to chess, an expert at the club had an instructional VHS tape. I've forgotten which GM it was, but the lesson was about 1 hour long. It was very good for beginners. I watched it with a notebook and pencil in hand.

I don't hate videos. The best feature of books, IMO, is how much information there is, and how easy it is to bookmark. Let's say you had a 1000 hour video, ok, you could write down time stamps and skip to sections, but I don't think it's being old fashioned of me to say this process is easier with a book.

Of course. You don't use books only for browsing openings.

Are you talking about those really old opening books where you flip open the page and you see a literal sea of variations, where every move has twelve sidelines and each sideline has an entire game, and nothing is annotated save the chess shorthands like "+/=" and "!" ?

I don't have a picture of what I'm talking about, though, and for some reason chess.com isn't letting my upload pictures. 

Thanks 

i have a guide and it is chess.com branded i think or chesskid

I've never had an opening book (reference or otherwise) that I liked.

I know some players much better than me make good use of opening books... but I've never put in work like that... probably because openings are the part of chess I like the least.

I mean dense like...

Once I was working through one of the Yusupov books. I tried to solve a position for about 30 minutes (it was a technical endgame). I thought I had figured out most of the variations. In reviewing the analysis I had missed some things, so I worked over the things I had missed. The whole thing took an hour or so, and it was only maybe 5 pages in a single book.

Let's be conservative and say a book is about 200 pages. So that's ~40 hours. Plus once you get done with a book, it's not as if you know everything. You'll have to do some review. Let's call that an extra 10 hours at least.

Spending 50 hours with a book is not unreasonable at all. I assume some people spend twice as much time or more. A video is what? Maybe 1-2 hours.

1 book = 200 videos of 1 hour each

It was ages since I read any chess books but aren't they mostly like science or programming books in that they are dense with concepts, you have to work through every chapter with a board to even get the basics and you rarely truly done even after second or third reading? In programming, one good book can last you a course or two and you still can come back to find something detail you have missed or didn't think about when you started. 

Yep.

maybe look at your local library or shop in amazon for one?

These days, casual players watch videos that are about 10 minutes long (and even then, 10 minutes is trying their patience).

Videos with titles like: "Learn to Crush the Sicilian in 10 minutes!"

and

"Master the Queen's Gambit in 9 Minutes or Less"

Here's a page from one of the books that I'm currently reading. I like to follow along with a physical board next to me. Reading chess books are certainly a much slower process than watching videos, but I find them far more instructive ...

It can look overwhelming to see all those variations in text on the page, but if you follow along with a board, you start to see the ideas behind the moves, and you begin to have little "lightbulb" moments of insight, as you move through each variation ...

But it's more work than passively watching a video, so for most players, it's understandable why books are less appealing.

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

@RussBell: That looks like a great article, probably, but why would you use that color scheme? Just use bold, italic and a bit larger size if you want to emphasize. The red color is blending at least for me with the dark wooden theme, the blue one isn't better and all together it just look like something out of 90's. 

i dont even use books but rather prefer watching batman as its fun

CRUSH THE SICILIAN WITH 2.NC3!

The video: so basically you just play f4 and try to checkmate them by throwing pawns up the board, 100% accurate education

That's a good point. The book I'm currently reading is a bit advanced. Mostly, I was showing a page from it to point out how much information a book can hold - much more than an average video.

But there are books that are helpful for lower levels, too.

For example, something like this (less variation heavy, more emphasis on explaining ideas):