About engine use and analysing (your) games ... [snip]
Yeah, I've only just now figured out how to make a computer run a chess game and think about it. I have gotten "Lucas Chess" (which seems pretty thorough, very nice for a free program!) and it has that "Tarrasch Toy" thing as part of its default download package. I'm not exactly a master of the interface and program -- I get confused as to whether I'm playing against the thing, or getting trained by it, or whether maybe it will give me a suggestion, and sometimes it limits the suggestions and hints whereas other times it just gives scores, but then doesn't indicate whether my score was high or low, so I'm still mystified. I did the "daily test" on Lucas, which consisted of five positions that I was supposed to ... what? move a piece? I didn't even know what to do with it. Then when I did move a piece, it ground its gears and said "+19.47"! Was that good? Bad? Thanks for that, Lucas ... Or, I could ask it to replace Toy Tarrasch with (for example) Fritz or Komodo, right? But it seems that some of them have some functions whereas others have other functions, and I'm really not getting the concept. Sometimes when I take a move back, it doesn't let me; other times, it requires me to take a move back; other times, it deducts (or adds?) points depending on what move I replace it with; other times, it just aborts and loses a record of what the original move was; and yet other times, it creates a chart of all the variations I've moved through in the recent past. Can't figure out the interface ...
Additionally, thanks to your (and others') reco, I think I will add the Zebra and Soltis "How to Study" books to my longer-term study plan. But for now, still plodding through Chernev's "Logical Chess." Last night was my first Alekhine game ever, WOW the lessons I learned, loved it! The offhand comments are SO totally worth reading through the book. Just little things, like, "Most young players ... have a tendency to try checking the king to death only to find ... that the king has escaped and the attack is exhausted." Oh YEAH, you KNOW I do that ... but not any more, or at least, I'll try not to. And this wasn't even the point that Chernev was making in the analysis of the move or game; it was just an offhand comment. I am marking them with paper stickit flags; it feels very much like reading a law school casebook. The only point is, that everything is the point. 
I have always been interested in the nature of mental "intake" -- how we learn, and how we learn to do things which we had not previously known how to do. As I progress through my fifty-first year of this life on this planet, I start to wonder, whether you can simply teach old dogs some very new tricks. The issue won't be with the trick, nor with the dog, nor with the newness of the trick nor the oldness of the dog. The issue, and its solution, will be with how you teach.
Khmelnitsky, Igor
I have read the Khmelnitsky book. It's more about rating your current ability, then teaching you a better play. But of course you can learn from the answers.
I also have the Soltis book. It's one of the few books I have read severely times, and still reading a chapter now and then. I contains much wise opinions from a strong player. But if make any improvement on your own play, I don't know. (I'm still a weak player after many years of play)