After having lucked into some more detailed reviews on US Amazon from that link (£125 for a book? Get lost, rofl I take 2 weeks to earn that much!!), I've got one final decision to make. Don't know how much help you can give, but:

Simple chess focuses on statics more than dynamics, as does Middlegame 1. Is it worth buying both of these, or just one or the other, to complement MG2 and AoA? (And possibly Attack with Tal, though I'm inclined to think Deadly Chess Tactician is similar ground at a more digestible level for me since I already own it )

Which book is $125? I must admit that I am amazed when people try to gouge like this. There was a similar situation for Tisdal's book but the second hand booksellers were looking for $60 or so for it. I waited a couple of months until the publisher ran another printing and then the price dropped to less than $20. There are so many good chess books available that you can bide your time with any book. Eventually you will run across it at a tournament or from some more reasonable seller.

If you are talking about Think Like a Grandmaster and How to Improve Your Chess Now I would get both in your shoes (assuming that you are paying $20 or so for each and preferably less). Both are classics that will stand the test of time and are the type of book that you can read several times in your chess life and get more from them as you get stronger.

Simple Chess by Stean (sp?) is a thin book so don't spend a huge sum on it. I would expect to find that one for $10 or $12 or less.

Two places to look for book reviews is ChessCafe.com and JeremySilman.com. Both sites seem to give fairly objective reviews.

The Soltis book was £125.

Quoting myself,

Simple chess focuses on statics more than dynamics, as does Middlegame...

So I did mention the books I'm talking about I did also explain earlier why I hate TLAG, but there we go. To paraphrase Kotov, I had already found very good prices for all the candidate books in my tree of bibliography And I had already read many reviews of the relevant books, it simply was a case that I found very few which explicitly compared the books I sought.

I suppose I should simply buy AoA and both Middlegame volumes: it's quite possible that Simple chess repeats what MG says, and if I'm in for a penny I'm in for a pound, as well as providing consistency for writing.

Wow. I'm surprised that the Soltis book is out of print and that people are charging that much for it. It has many good reviews, but I doubt it is worth that price. I searched everywhere I could think of to find a cheaper copy for you, but no luck. The cheapest was $116 US. I guess I should bump it up the reading list.

I think Simple Chess by Stean is still available new from Dover so you should be able to get it for $10 Amazon link

-Puts head in hands- Is it impertinent of me to be a tad frustrated at how people are not answering my question and assuming rather low knowledge from what I write? If it's not really answerable I dont mind, so long as people say! I appreciate I am new, but I had already researched a good deal on prices and things And I've been writing £ signs, so I'm not in the US, AND I can get it for $4 equivalent in the UK anyways. Meh, perhaps I should just buy all the books

We like to torment you.

I haven't read Simple Chess so I can't say if what it says is repeated in MG or not. The MG books are definitely worth getting. I'd say grab the MG set and AoA.

When you are sitting at the board do you know you have a crushing position or is it only coming to light in the post-mortem analysis with Fritz? Perhaps some example games could be posted for Crash and others to look and get a better idea of what it is you are needing and then they can give better advice on books that can help with that.

Sorry, maybe I have too many webpages open at once. I can't offer an opinion on either of those books other than second hand.

I still think that he would be better off with a book that focused on psychology of chess rather than middlegames. Not following through properly on a winning position isn't a matter of misplaying the middlegame but rather a matter of misplaying a position.

Simple Chess is a good book but I am not sure that it really addresses what was listed as the central problem.

I think I’ve been where you’re at. I was a perennial 1600-1700 despite being booked up on the openings I played, having read about every middlegame book that was available…in those days that meant books by Fine, Pachman and even aforementioned The Art of Attack. I knew K&P and R&P endings quite well. I kept studying but it was beating a dead horse. I was giving 1800-1900’s a good game but still almost always losing. One day a really old master told me a secret. I played over about 150 games from the old Lone Pine tmts. After that I got an Informant (in those days they cost $5.00) and played over every game (about 500-600) in it. I spent about 10 minutes or so on each game and tried to guess the next move. In the next tmt. 1800-2000’s were dropping like flies and I was 4-0 then lost to a 2400 IM in the last round. I think the missing ingredient was pattern recognition. Also playing over all those games showed me how to put into practice stuff I knew but didn’t know how to apply. When I told the old master about what happened all he said was, “Of course.” Anyway before investing in any more books I’d give it a try and see what happens.