Rating: 
Summary: Good value. Decent book. Reprinted as "Chess" in hardcover.
Review: The 1st edition has been reprinted in hardcover and is now called "Chess" by Graham Burgess. As chess instruction books go, this is average at best, but it is a good value for the money. However, it is not so good for beginners.The best thing about the book are the descriptions of plans for various openings, and typical traps. So this is a very good book for trying new openings. The 2nd edition has more current info on computers, but that section is really unnecessary anyway. The rest of the book has decent material, enough to last you quite awhile, but nothing that will give you any epiphanies. By the way, the companion (still out-of-print as of October 2003) games collection, Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games, is a truly excellent book for intermediate players.
Rating:
Summary: Good value. Decent book. Reprinted as "Chess" in hardcover.
Review: The 1st edition has been reprinted in hardcover and is now called "Chess" by Graham Burgess. As chess instruction books go, this is average at best, but it is a good value for the money. However, it is not so good for beginners. The best thing about the book are the descriptions of plans for various openings, and typical traps. So this is a very good book for trying new openings. The 2nd edition has more current info on computers, but that section is really unnecessary anyway. The rest of the book has decent material, enough to last you quite awhile, but nothing that will give you any epiphanies. By the way, the companion (still out-of-print as of October 2003) games collection, Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games, is a truly excellent book for intermediate players.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Depth
Review: The book has bredth and depth into the dynamics of chess play. It is well written and illustrated.
Rating: 
Summary: BCF Award Winner 1997
Review: The Mammoth Book of Chess has won the 1997 British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award.
Rating:
Summary: Great Depth
Review: The mammoth book of chess is a very comprehensive and interesting book. The openings section has a short verbal explanations on most of the openings, and a lot of games to give strategic examples.
The middlegame section is also very good and it has a lot of puzzles in different levels, from easy mate in two to very hard combination puzzles. Best for beginners to intermediate players, but advanced players can enjoy the second part of the book too, which is about other chess related subjects like computers and internet chess.
Rating:
Summary: The best chess book I know
Review: The mammoth book of chess is absolutly the most comprehensive and interesting book on chess I have ever read. The openings section has the best verbal explanations on most of the openings, and a lot of games to give strategic examples.
The middlegame section is also very good and it has a lot of puzzles in different levels, from pretty easy mate in two to very hard combination puzzles. Best for beginners to intermediate players, but advanced players can enjoy the second part of the book too, which is not about learning chess, it's about other chess related subjects like computers and internet chess. The auther writes in a very easy to read style which makes reading this book a lot of fun. The only criticism I have on this book is the poor paperback cover. It looks like it is not going to survive a very long time (A minor detail - don't let this affect you), but it has a really low price because of it. buy this book and I promise you won't be disapointed. I wrote this review about a year ago and I have to say I was wrong about the binding. It lasted this long without any problems. Another book that looks much better is already fallingapart eventhough I use the Mammoth book a lot more.
Rating:
Summary: A bargain at any price
Review: This is a fairly large book which goes over close to any given topic you can think of in chess. While many times, the "wide but not deep" concept just doesn't work well and leaves the reader wanting for more, this is certainly not the case in this book. While you DO want to know more about some subjects you will read about in the book, you will not feel like you are missing something after reading a section on the topic. If you are on a budget and want a book that you can learn loads from, this hands down is your book. Even if you aren't on a budget, this is your book.
Rating:
Summary: You will use it, I promise.
Review: This is a great source for dedicated player who does not want to cram his bookshelves with tons of chess books. I enjoyed "combinations" and end game puzzles. My knowledge about the openings has been gradually expanded over the years by studying and memorizing "Chess Openings" chapter. Fantastic brain exercise! You will learn extensively chess nomenclature and how to take advantage of your computer. I recommend that novice chess activists organizing tournaments for kids and seniors should get this book as well. Summarizing -
do not miss it if you plan to jump from casual playing to more serious approach.
Rating: 
Summary: Chessboard or smorgasbord?
Review: This is sort of a buffet of a chess book. There's a little of everything, and not a lot of depth in anything, but what's there is fun, though in some spots Burgess seems to be writing for everybody: there are arcane references to past games, players and techniques; there are "tests" of considerable difficulty and some of incredible ease. There's a section on how to play chess, so apparently he wants notices to pick up this book too. There are sections that address simple questions like "If I just started playing, is there any chance I can ever become a master?" which again leads one to believe the book is aimed at novices. But then a few pages later there will be position analyses with many variations and sub-variations that make my head spin (and I am an Expert-level player) plus some solutions I flat-out do not get. I wonder who the intended audience is for this book. Most puzzling, though, is the section on computer chess. I guess this made sense when he wrote it back in 1996-97...but now the chapters read as a relic, albeit an often amusing one. He talks about the latest in computers and computer chess: 486s and Pentium IIs, and Fritz 3 and 4! (We're up to Fritz 8 now, if you're counting.) He shows strategies to defeat computers that any recent program will mow down. He gives URLs to chess sites and publishers, most of which no longer work. He gives Telnet addresses! It's kind of like using a telephone directory from 1966 to find somebody today. But despite all the apparent griping, the book is useful, but more as a quick reference, or entertaining page-turner than as a serious study. If you really want to improve your game and you're an intermediate-level player, I recommend, for starters, Silman's "How To Reassess Your Chess," and "The Amateur's Mind," Nimzovichs "My System" and Pachman's "Modern Chess Strategy." You will have a strong foundation. (Heck, if I reread them, I'd have a stronger foundation.) This book also had some glaring typos. Some were just grammatical ("Fischer took on the hole Russian chess team" or something like that) but there are at least two moves in games I've caught that are wrong, ie, impossible from the diagrammed position. Both times I went to a computer database to find the game and see the correct move. Still, I find most chess books to be fun at the very least, so I gave it four stars. (I'll rarely give less than that to any chess book so long as it wasn't written by Eric Schiller.) If you can get this title for cheap, it is a reasonably good book, but more as a supplement. It's not comprehensive, it's not up-to-date and it certainly won't teach a beginner very much. Seirawan's series on strategy, tactics, brilliancies, etc., from Microsoft Press is much better at that.
Rating:
Summary: Big fat general purpose book
Review: This is truly a chess book that all levels can enjoy. It teaches the basics. It has chess lore, some mate in two puzzles, some devilishly hard combination puzzles. It also has information about chess on the Internet (updated since the last edition of this book), and information about chess openings, endings, and middlegames (the latter dispersed among several chapters). It even has a chapter on chess puzzles, which is an art form by itself. The information on how to use chess databases and how to use chess programs is surprisingly helpful; I have never seen it in print before.
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