A paperback edition of one of Reinfeld's potboilers, How to Win Chess Games Quickly, probably, in 1968. I got Reinfeld's opening book not long afterwards and there followed many hours spent happily and futilely on opening study as MCO-10 showed up a few years later. Futile but fun.
What was your first chess book?
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The first book I got after learning chess?
That would be Checkers for Dummies (Ha! - so you thought you could play chess)
Most of the titles you guys have were well known classic books, My was Mammoth Book of Chess by Graham Burgess, the reason I chose that book? It was the cheapest one.
When I was about ten years old my parents purchased a copy of Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess for me.
I bought about three books at the same time, The New St. George by IM Michael Basman, Classical Dutch by IM Jan Pinski, and Chess Attack and Counterattack by Fred Reinfeld
Attack and Counter-Attack in Chess and How to Win Chess Games Quickly by Fred Reinfeld.
Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual
I'm still on the first chapter 
charlesgalofre wrote:
the first book i purchased, and did not get to read: pawn power by hans kmoch. it was recommended.
but then some how i got a hold of yasser seirawans winning chess series... primarily, strategy and tactics.
read them both while in class in middle school.
i thought they were great books. atleast to start.
thanks,
charles
The first book I actually studied was Winning Chess Tactics.
My first chess book was The Usborne Guide to Better Chess, by GM David Norwood (1992). It contained Advanced Chess and Chess Puzzles. This book finally gave me the knowledge needed to beat my dad sometimes!
How to Think Ahead in Chess by I.A. Horowitz. I learned the Stonewall Opening, the Sicilian Dragon and Lasker's Defence.
My first book was : "Leçons particulières avec un champion" by IM Nicolas Giffard. Which can be literraly translated into : "Private lessons with a champion". I doubt, it had ever been translated to english.
Anyway It was a birthday gift from a close friend, who also was a chess player. Thanks to what I learned from reading it, I was finnaly able to beat him 
Dec 23, 2011
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#34
"A Trip to Chess Kingdom" ("Путешествие в шахматное королевство") by Yuriy Averbakh and Mikhail Beilin
play better chess by leonard barden. its a good book. still g ot it somewhere..
New Ideas in Chess by Larry Evans
...but i dont actually own it, im just the only one that ever checks it out of our library
Tarrasch "Das Schachspiel" which my father bought me as a birthday present when I was ten years old. He set up a chess table in a nook in our house and went through the whole book with me, thereby learning chess himself. My father's gone now, but just recently I found the book in his house - still lying near the chess board, badly tattered and riddled with all the annotations my father had made back then. I keep it dear.
Bott & Morrison's Chess for Children, in 1968 or so.
Dec 23, 2011
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#39
"Chess for Young Beginners" by William T. Mcleod, read it at the age of five.
Mine was "Xadrez para Crianças" (Chess for Children):
http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-213319224-livro-xadrez-para-criancas-jose-luis-braseiro-_JM
I got it in 1976 and, during 10 years, was my only book of chess...
Now i have more than 50, i think.
Horowitz, with the brown cover. The second I bought was Horowitz, openings, with the white cover, in preparation for a tourney match against GM Torre's protege. I won that match, and still have the signed move list, 36 years after!