Mastering Chess: A Course in 21 Lessons

This book provides an "all-in-one" chess course aimed at students in the 1300 - 1750 rating range. It covers tactics, opening principles, strategic ideas (i.e. outposts, minority attack, weak squares, doubled pawns, isolated pawns, etc. etc), endgames, and practical playing tips (i.e. training, managing the clock, nerves, etc.).All in all this is a pretty decent book. None of the 21 lessons goes into heavy detail, but rather provides a quick overview on each topic. The motivated student would probably then want to seek out other more advanced texts to further expand on the topics.

From the first page you get the distinct impression that these guys who wrote this book know what they are talking about. I've never read a book that so profoundly affected my game on all fronts! Opening, middlegame, endgame have all been improved by my reading this book. The bibliography is filled with useful books that you can read to take you even further into the realms of chessdom. Guys if you want to improve your rating then this is THE book! I kid you not.