Negative Positive
Title: Essential Step in all Chess Progress
Review: Simply, No other author in chess books does quite what J. Silman does in his book!! After slogging through the tons of available books, eventually you come upon this jewel of chess literature. Or you can stop slogging. Mr. Silman building on his insights as related in the Amateur's Mind, rebuilds chess from a game of endless calculation, or reactionary candidate moves, to one of of actually being able to analyze and see any position in light of its true themes. Finally a book that teaches the player to think, not react. The only real weakness is it is not complete enough, something he works on remedying in his Workbook. After this book a chess enthusiast is more able to move to more esoteric texts, with better understanding. Rather than spending years memorizing apocrypha to get to the same point. A great book for any player from Starting Player to Master level. If you are a Master you are probably familiar with all the other literature anyway.
Is the review positive or negative? 