Best book for learning Chess


Some books are better than others, but I don't think there is any one "best" book; just books which work "best" for different chess players.
As far as books go, I know some are more beginner friendly, but overall, I wouldn't recommend chess books to a beginner (maybe others in this thread can recommend some beginner-friendly books they like) for a few reasons. First of all, chess notation takes a while to read "fluently" and chess beginners will inevitably struggle with reading and saying notation accurately for a while. You can gain practice with this by reading/saying notation or by drills like chess.com vision trainer https://www.chess.com/vision but books are tough enough to navigate without the reader also struggling just to play the moves.
Another reason I don't love books for beginners is because books are time consuming. Yes, they are useful (I like chess books and believe they have their valuable place), but there are other ways of improvement which will yield more efficient results to a chess beginner. If you have the time to invest in reading a chess book, then you could also use that time for shorter things which add up and might be more beneficial than grappling with notation and diagrams.
Some recommendations are:
- learning basic checkmates like King + Queen vs King or King + Rook vs King.
- learning basic theoretical endgames like King + pawn vs King winning using King Opposition as well as the cases where it is actually a draw with best defense.
- solving chess puzzles/tactics routinely to help you increase your chess pattern recognition
There are other things you could do too, but the point is that the fundamentals will likely be a better use of your time at first.
Feel free to message me on chess.com if you have any questions or just want a chess friend to discuss with

It’s easy to read, empowering and the chapters are divided by rating. So the first chapters teach you what you should know below 1000, the next chapters do 1000-1200, etc.
Knowing endgames helps a lot.

There is no "best" chess book. But, of course, some are better than others. Here are many of the better ones....
Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

As a beginner, you should definitely check out Silmans Endgame Course as your main source of theoretical endgame knowledge.
Learn Chess The Right way series by Judit Polgar is a great way to sharpen your basic tactics knowledge.
The Soviet Chess Primer is a great book in general, in which Garry Kasparov learnt chess from.
Logical Chess Move By Move is another great book that can help logical decision making.
If you had to pick out one of these, I would choose Logical Chess Move by Move.