Desert Island Books -- Oldie but Goldie

So, What three books inspired you the most as Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Chess Player?

B) Mammoth Book of Chess

I) New Developement in the Latvian Gambit/Latvian Gambit Lives

A) .....Not quite there yet....

    farbror,

   Thank you for this post.

   The three books that inspired me the most as Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced player are the following:

 How To Think Ahead In Chess,    -   As a Beginner                                             by I.A. Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld

 My System                                  -  As an Itermediate                                       by Aaron Nitzowitsch

Pawn Power In Chess                    -  As an Advanced                                           by Hans Kmoch

A partial list of other books that I have read and more importantly digested and have made me the chess player I am today are:

Die Blockade, by Aaron Nimzowitsch

Chess Praxis, by Aaron Nimzowitsch

Basic Chess Endings, by Reuben (he's so) Fine 

Chess Life and Chess Life & Review, USCF publication - all GM Larry Evans column entries of corrections to Basic Chess Endings

Yuri Averbak's Endgame Series, by Yuri Averbak (5 volume set)

I love this game  

Beginner book==>The Complete Chessplayer by Fred Reinfeld

Intermediate Book==>The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman

Advanced Book==>Test Your Tactical Ability by Yakov Neishdadt

Thank you! Interesting!

The book that got me to thinking in terms of chess; How Not to Play Chess by Eugene Znosko-Borovsky.

The book that improved my play more than any other; Modern Chess Tactics by Ludek Pachman.

The book I most want to give to a beginner (of any age); Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Bobby Fischer.  I'm thinking, by the way, that this may be the most widely read (not necessarily the best selling) book on chess.

Some classics that I doubt will ever be completely outdated:

Modern Chess Strategy by Ludek Pachman

Modern Chess Strategy by Ludek Pachman, vol 1 and 2

Lasker's Manual of Chess by Emmanuel Lasker

Chess Strategy and Modern Chess Strategy by Edward Lasker

The Game of Chess by Siegbert Tarrasch

My System and Chess Praxis by Aron Nimzowitch

The Middlegame in Chess by Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

How to Play Chess Endings by Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

The Art of Sacrifice in Chess by Rudolph Spielman

Pawn Structure Chess by Andrew Soltis

Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld

The Road to Chess Mastery by Max Euwe; in depth analysis of 25 games featuring 25 different openings, explaining the ideas behind those openings and the kinds of middle games they lead to.

The Basis of Combnation in Chess by J. du Mont

The Logical Approach to Chess by Max Euwe

Judgement and Planning in Chess by Max Euwe

Chess Fundamentals by Jose Raul Capablanca

And a chess book that is loads of fun but of very little instructional value: The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Raymond Smullyan, a fun twist to chess problems.

My three favs? I would say...

Logical Chess: Move by Move

The Amateur's Mind

The Seven Deadly Chess Sins