How to Read Chess Books?

I hope the question doesn't seem too stupid. I'm not having issues understanding the chess notation that the book employs. Rather, it is about problems playing through the moves in the book. It is common for chess books to have pages of analysis that deviate from the main game/line. It becomes very cumbersome to play through each individual variation, and it's very annoying having to put my pieces back to where they were before every time. It's also very easy to get lost and "drown" in all of the subsequent variations. In addition, there are often no annotations to go with it, so it gets very confusing what I'm supposed to be learning anyway. How can I get the most out of these books and make it a more valuable learning experience? Your responses are much appreciated.

@EnragedSanta - 

A couple of thoughts...

1) If you use the Chess.com analysis board, you don't have to remember or reset the the pieces as you go through variations and subvariations....it records/remembers every move you play....try it....

https://www.chess.com/analysis

2) When reading chess books, I generally play over only the main lines and mostly avoid/skip the subvariations/sidelines unless I feel they are important or crucial to understanding the main lines.  That is, it is the main lines that are most important to understand.  Bottom line - don't feel compelled to have to read every last variation/subvariation or that you will necessarily miss the important point of the lesson if you skip them.

Finally, you might discover something of interest here...

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond....

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

@Russbell

I tried the analysis board and it is very helpful. It's for sure better than using a chessboard.

As for the analysis, I just can't help but to get the feeling that the authors must have put it there for a reason. And there must be at least some people who read/use it somehow, I'm just curious the actual use of it is. Also it just feels wrong skipping over a bunch of pages in the book just because I see a lot of analysis.

I understand your concern.  But you can make a judgement call on what you feel is important for you to learn.  You should decide whether spending the time/effort to read/study a variation or sideline is significantly important to your understanding of the point of what you are trying to learn, or is it just marginally useful, but not necessarily critical information.  You can make the decision to read/study it, or not, on that basis.  I also view it as a time management issue.  Studying the less important stuff uses up time that could profitably be devoted to study of more important stuff later.  These decisions are also a function of one's chess skill level and experience.  For instance lower rated players will benefit more by focusing on information which serves to clarify fundamental principles - focusing on the forest more than on the trees, so to speak.

The above considerations are particularly appropos of openings books.

Something else I do too is to play through the game the chess book offers (play through it on a physical board), but when they mention a long variation I try to visualize that line in my head; this long-term helps my calculation. When done reading the book, or chapter, or whatever, then I can go back to those lines in more detail. When you do this though; it is very natural to only be able to visualize one or two moves of these lines (despite that these lines may be the rest of entire games). That is okay; eventually, you will be able to calculate further and further. Now when I get to some main lines that I am familiar with, I am surprised how far I can calculate in my head  but this takes time and patience.

This is a very good point.  In fact I try to do exactly the same thing

I use the same method. 

"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)

"... If the book contains illustrative games, it is worth playing these over first ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)

"... the average player only needs to know a limited amount about the openings he plays. Providing he understands the main aims of the opening, a few typical plans and a handful of basic variations, that is enough. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)

"The way I suggest you study this book is to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, and then start playing the variation in actual games. Playing an opening in real games is of vital importance - without this kind of live practice it is impossible to get a 'feel' for the kind of game it leads to. There is time enough later for involvement with the details, after playing your games it is good to look up the line." - GM Nigel Davies (2005)

"... To begin with, only study the main lines ... you can easily fill in the unusual lines later. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)

"... Just because a book contains lots of information that you don’t know, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be extremely helpful in making you better at this point in your chess development. ..." - Dan Heisman (2001)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140626180930/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman06.pdf

"... The books that are most highly thought of are not necessarily the most useful. Go with those that you find to be readable. ..." - GM Nigel Davies (2010)

"... If it’s instruction, you look for an author that addresses players at your level (buying something that’s too advanced won’t help you at all). This means that a classic book that is revered by many people might not be useful for you. ..." - IM Jeremy Silman (2015)

https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-best-chess-books-ever

"... [annotated games are] infinitely more useful than bare game scores. However, annotated games vary widely in quality. Some are excellent study material. Others are poor. But the most numerous fall into a third category - good-but-wrong-for-you. ... You want games with annotations that answer the questions that baffle you the most. ..." - GM Andrew Soltis (2010)

"I recently took a train from Amsterdam to the quaint little Belgium town of Bruges. Looking for a book to keep me occupied for the four hour ride, I remembered my review copy of Richard Pert’s Playing the Trompowsky, which is certainly thinner than most of the books coming out of Quality Chess. And indeed, I was able to read the whole book, cover to cover, during the ride; the one adjective that first comes to mind when you pick up Pert’s work is Short. It’s only 260 pages ... I decided to reread the book on the four hour return journey to Amsterdam. ..." - GM smurfo (2014)

https://www.chess.com/article/view/review-playing-the-trompowsky

Is that ~55 seconds per page?

https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/PlayingtheTrompowsky-excerpt.pdf

I have similar dislike for long variations in books. It depends what skill player you are. The books with less descriptive explanation and more variations are usually for experienced, more advanced players, who will already know the concepts. The books that are geared toward beginners or intermediate players usually have either fewer or shorter variation paths. 

But if you really have to go over a book that has many long variations then the best option is to have two boards side by side if you have space. Easiest would be to have two windows open on the computer screen. In my experience there is much less retention of knowledge with a flat computer screen. But two boards would be an option only if you have enough space. The second board can be small. Or you could have two small boards that are under 16 by 16 in size.

When I was going over a book with coverage of openings and another book with famous "immortal" games I replayed at least first ten moves over and over on the board right after reading what the idea behind it was and it was easier to remember it at the time. By now I forgot because I am not a competitive player and don't care about it as much, but at the time it was much easier to retain the knowledge I read.

Hey look! Your cat plays chess too?

Meow!