The Best Chess Author

I got it...

Josh Waitzkin.

that makes us 3 .

I don't think there is such thing as 'best author', just good authors from a certain ctegory and audience.

Openings:

John Watson & Graham Burgress & Khalifman & Nunn for comprehensiveness

Joe Gallagher and Chris Ward for their humor

John Emms, John Cox, Andrew Greet and more for their ability to cater for us lesser mortals.

Middlegame:

There are heaps of good authors for middlegame, but I'll just name two, Silman for lesser mortals, and Dvoretsky for lectures from Middlegame University.

Endgames:

Again, there are quite a lot,

Averbakh, Nunn and Dvorestky for comprehensiveness, and I guess Silman and Alburt for lesser mortals.

Haha! Lol thanks guys. You can just laugh at me next time whether you think I'm kidding or not. I don't care =D

kasparov

What's with you Kasparov people? He's not the best in everything. He's got good games to show, but he's not close to being the best author.

 You never know though...someone could get mad.  Schiller could really be someone's favorite author...

The operative word here is "me". I give you permission to laugh at me. I don't think people would appreciate it very much if I just went around willy-nilly giving people permission to laugh sarcastically at them. =D

Before you had said that, it would have been risky to laugh...   Also, people who like to laugh sarcastically would certainly appreciate it. (Not mentioning any names...)

First, Nimzowitsch and Seirawan are off the list.

Nimzowitsch cannot communicate to the reader.

His material is presented unorganized.

Seirawan's books are too basic.

His books are not too hard to write.

I'd say either Dvoretsky, or John Nunn.

Very true, he's a great teacher. I read his "Art of Learning" and thought it was awesome. My favorite were his Chessmaster sessions because he explained his thought process from his own games and they were by far the best lessons I have ever had. Never before had I seen someone of his caliber articulate his thoughts so well and then try and make you rise to the occasion by challenging and encouraging you to think as deeply as him. He inspired me to want to be better.

For beginners:

Seirwan and Silman, and Alburt

For advanced players:

Devoretsky

Best "unknown" author:

Purdy

I am old fashioned and prefer books in the Descriptive notation (  ie before 1980 ) but agree it takes up more space than Algebraic. Two great authors of the old school were Golombek and Pachman but there were plenty of others eg Tartakower and Marco.

A good author for the average player is Weeramantry.

His Best Lessons of a Chess Coach often gets mentioned in best or most useful book threads.

Schiller and Horowitz. Also enjoy Daniel Rensch, his work on Chess.com is excellent.

 I'm a first year beginner, not a kid  and have books by all three authors you mentioned above:

Seirawan and Silman, and Alburt. I have a couple from each author. They are all very good writers, but for the beginner? I bought "How to Reassess Your Chess", understanding it to be very popular, as an example. Maybe I am buying the wrong books for my level, as I struggle with tactical puzzles rated at 1200 on this site!  Silman states that his book is for the serious player rated D and above.

The Dummie and Idiot Guide books on chess are written by real chess players as well (master level), and I have yet to find better comprehensive books than these for the beginner. Another favorite of mine is: "How to beat your dad at chess by Murray Chandler". All of the classic checkmates are covered in a fun and easy way to understand.  

My absolute favorite beginning book is: "Teach Yourself Visually Chess by Jon Edwards" (Master Player Player). Each example has full color 3D pictures of a chessboard with pieces. No 2D diagrams. Every part of the chess game is covered, just as found in the Idiot and Dummie series...but it's all visual AND uses algebraic notation. 284 pages - my favorite book.

I've learned the most about how to play chess from the youtube videos produced by jrobi. He's got to be the best video teacher for beginners. As a diamond member, I have full access to the video library, and have found only a few videos for the absolute beginner. The ones marked beginning to intermediate, I feel, are for the intermediate player mostly.

Perhaps the members here at chess dot com are mostly intermediate to advanced players?

 i don't get it could somebody please tell me

trust me schiller

jeremy silman and yesser seirawan both make chess easy to understand and john nunn