Beating the French

Gary Lane advocates the use of the Advanced Variation (3 e5) of the French for White. Instead of providing a specific repertoire (as Soltis does in his book on the Advanced French), Lane gives the latest theory in all the Advance lines from the Milner-Barry gambit to Kupreichik's 5. Be3. Each line is illustrated by an annotated game by practitioners such as Sveshnikov, Nunn, Anand, Torre and others. It's hard to belive that this 1994 book is out of print already. Nothing earth-shattering has occurred in Advanced theory in the past few years, so this is still a very useful book. Recommended for anyone put off by the reams of theory one needs to play the Winawer or the boring positions that often result from the Tarrash or Burn variations of the French.