Starting Out: the English

Rating:
Summary: good book for getting an overview about english opening
Review: I bought this book facing the fact there really wasn't a general book telling me about the english opening. This book gives fairly balanced guidelines for both white and black about different english systems, many other books on market concentrate on specific lines. Although I'm still reading it and playing games with board, I guarantee you won't waste your money if you get a copy. I'm a 1500 player so I can't really say about the lines and if they are a little bit out-dated (as some reviews tell you), but I think for me this is just a good book. I like the idea that you can learn a solid opening and yet the opponent is not always so happy to face 1.c4. The layout of the book is not the most pleasant to my eyes (single column), but as a bonus you got plenty of space to write your own thoughts. There are a lot of guidelines along the journey, telling sometimes very general and useful things. I like the annotations of the selected games, and it's nice to study those playing the moves with board. This book is somewhat bigger than in other Starting Out -series, so you'll find here a lot to study.
Nice book indeed.

Rating:
Summary: A good beginner's manual on this opening.
Review: This is an excellent book.

A local student just purchased this book, we spent almost the entire afternoon (Saturday) studying together.

My student is only nine, he obviously does not know much about chess - he only has been playing for about six months in total.

He finds this book to be fantastic. He loves it and cannot put it down. I agree, it is carefully and concisely written ... made to order for the average beginner or intermediate player.

If you have been playing chess for only a short while and are looking for a very solid and basic "HOW TO" type of book, then I can highly recommend this book to you! (You will eventually graduate from this book, better have Nunn's Chess Openings or MCO-14 sitting on the shelf.)