'Forcing Chess Moves' by Charles Hertan for non-opening books, and 'The Berlin Wall' by John Cox for opening books.

Reasses Your Chess and Silman's Basic Endgame Course

To be precise, the books you are referring to are 'Reassess Your Chess' and 'Silman's Complete Endgame Course'.

I agree that both are excellent books - particularly 'Silman's Complete Endgame Course' which if I recall correctly was nominated for a 'Chess Book of the Year' award.

Complete endgame course, basic endgame course, same difference.

For some reason, when I posted, I was thinking BCE was by Silman.
Thanks for the correction.

Well if you really, really want to be precise, it is 'How To Reassess Your Chess'.

@granturismo4ad

No worries.

@snits

I stand corrected - thanks.

What about 'must have' books that are aimed primarily at over 2000 players, e.g. Dvoretsky's books?

Most of the over 2000 players who are still interested in books are mostly into books that will not be obsolete anytime soon. For them tournament books, biographies, game collections and endgame books have utility. Of course opening books in their repertoire would be in their libraries.

As far as those books by Dvoretsky, I remember a conversation that had with Pavel Blatny. He pointed out that the books are really focused on players that are of IM strength or higher.

I would recommend any book by CJS Purdy. Probably the most enjoyable is The Search for Chess Perfection. Purdy had an uncanny ability to explain the game without using a lot of variations; even Booby Fischer praised his analytic ability. It might be of interest that I gave a copy of the sections of the book on how to reduce errors and how to plan to a mid-1600 player and in about a month he was playing at the 1800 level.

I have read Purdy's Fine Art of Chess Annotation and greatly enjoyed that. Hopefully Thinker's Press will be reprinting their Purdy collection in the near future after they reprint Buckley's book.

I absolutely agree on Purdy. Anything that man wrote is worth having.