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Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Guide to the English
Review: Anyone starting on the English Opening, or even considering it, should get this book immediately! Rather than simply list dry lines and variations, Kosten goes into detail about the broad, long-term goals of both Black and White in the major systems of the Carls` Bremen System that he seems to prefer. He rarely deviates from 1.c4 2.g3 3.Bg2, but as this is a very good set of starting moves for White most of the time (which he has played at Grandmaster level himself for years), there isn`t really much trouble. He talks about certain desirable formations and plans that are not dependant on memorising move orders or dependant on your opponent playing exactly the moves you have memorised. The book is fast-paced, as it is short, and doesn`t dally around much. Without a doubt, this is the best book I have ever seen on a chess opening!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Guide to the English
Review: Anyone starting on the English Opening, or even considering it, should get this book immediately! Rather than simply list dry lines and variations, Kosten goes into detail about the broad, long-term goals of both Black and White in the major systems of the Carls` Bremen System that he seems to prefer. He rarely deviates from 1.c4 2.g3 3.Bg2, but as this is a very good set of starting moves for White most of the time (which he has played at Grandmaster level himself for years), there isn`t really much trouble. He talks about certain desirable formations and plans that are not dependant on memorising move orders or dependant on your opponent playing exactly the moves you have memorised. The book is fast-paced, as it is short, and doesn`t dally around much. Without a doubt, this is the best book I have ever seen on a chess opening!
Rating: 
Summary: Quite good but could have been much better
Review: Ever notice how all the "How to win with The ____ Opening" books are written by people that regularly lose? This book is a pleasant exception. It doesn't claim that it'll teach you an opening repertoire that'll devastate your opponents and requires minimum study, thus saving you hours, nay YEARS in futile perusing of THE MAIN LINES WHICH THIS BOOK AVOIDS! etc, etc.
Yep it's a "How To Win as White ". But it's free of hype, written by a Grandmaster and perhaps most important of all, written by a national coach. It's the teacher and GM combination that work so well. Easily the best current book on this opening.
Rating:
Summary: Don't miss this superb book!
Review: Excellent book for anyone rated U2000 and below. Stress is on understanding the resulting middlegame positions that occur after 2.g3 instead of rote learning of lines. There are also some gems that help you understand key issues concerning the f4/f5 squares and d4/d5 squares, knowing when to make exchanges on these squares is fundamental in understanding how to play the English. The investment made in studying this book will reap big rating points.
Rating:
Summary: Don't miss this superb book!
Review: GM Tony Kosten has made a brilliant little book about English Opening. It's nice to see that the author actually plays the stuff he's teaching and that he wants to share the knowledge he's been gathering through the years. Ok, it might not be the most complete English Opening book and the author admits it. But, it's a repertoire book, and basically white's formation is based on 1. c4 2. g3 3. Bg2 4. Nc3, so maybe not the most mainstream English. This book is divided into three parts: I Reversed Sicilian 1...e5 1 The Botvinnik System: 2..Nc6 and 3...g6
2 Grand Prix Attack Reversed: 2...Nc6 and 3...f5
3 The Three Knights System: 4... Bc5
4 The Three Knights System: 4...Bb4
5 Dragon Reversed: 2...Nf6 and 3...d5
6 The Keres System: 2...Nf6 and 3...c6
7 Other Second Moves for Black II Symmetry 1...c5 8 The Symmetrical Variation: ...g6 and ...Nc6
9 The Rubinstein Variation: 2...Nf6 and 3...d5
10 The Keres-Parma Variation: ...e6 and ...d5 III Other first moves for black 11 The Pseudo-Grünfeld System: 1...Nf6 and 2...d5
12 The Dutch: 1...f5
13 1...g6
14 1...c6
15 1...e6
16 The English Defence: 1...b6 An index of variations is also included. I strongly recommend this book for everyone willing to learn the English Opening.
Rating:
Summary: Another Good Book by Tony Kosten
Review: I have been playing the English regularly for several years, but never played the 2. g3 lines until I read this book. Now I play 2. g3 regularly and thereby avoid many of the heavily analysed variations. As far as I can see, this is the way I should have been playing the English all along. If you want to know everything about the English, this book isn't for you; but if you want a good, aggressive, relatively simple way to play this opening, this book will point you in the right direction.
Rating:
Summary: Another Good Book by Tony Kosten
Review: I have been playing the English regularly for several years, but never played the 2. g3 lines until I read this book. Now I play 2. g3 regularly and thereby avoid many of the heavily analysed variations. As far as I can see, this is the way I should have been playing the English all along. If you want to know everything about the English, this book isn't for you; but if you want a good, aggressive, relatively simple way to play this opening, this book will point you in the right direction.
Rating: 
Summary: interesting but unuseful
Review: I was very interested with this book because Grandmaster Kosten is a good chess writer and he is a regular user of the English opening, but the book is disappointing. Fisrt of all take note that this is not a reference book nor a book for beginners. Kosten writes 16 chapters dealing with the endless variations of the English, so with 144 pages at his disposal he has to be brief and - alas - superficial. You'll learn nothing studying this book unless you are such a good player - 2300 rated or higher - to understand the ideas Kosten illustrates. Indeed Kosten explains his own way of playing the opening and this is an interesting topic, but absolutely unuseful to the average player.
Rating: 
Summary: A good repertoire book
Review: This is fine repertoire book for white (i.e. for most black tries is given only one possible answer for white, the author's choice). For most important variations Kosten gives also a very brief introduction in the strategy of the typical positions which will appear later in the game. I gave only 4 stars because: there are no full games in the book, illustrating the variations; typical positions are explained very brief and not all of them are explained; some variations proposed by Kosten are not on my taste (I don't like positions with a pawn down). Overall, is a good book for starting with English.
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