Weapons of Chess: An Omnibus of Chess Strategies Book

This is probably Bruce Pandolfini's best book. It is the format of a mini-encyclopedia and gives concise, lucid explanations for various aspects of strategic elements in chess that can be very helpful. There is plenty of material about pawns, especially the isolated d-pawn. I read it all the way through once and plan to use it as a reference book. It is targeted at beginners and intermediate players, but I would not recommend this as a first chess book. I would read at least one introductory chess book first and gain some playing experience before reading this book. After studying this book, you would be ready for more advanced books on chess strategy, such as Michael Stean's Simple Chess, Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Strategies, and Jeremy Silman's The Complete Book of Chess Strategy. One negative is that the production quality of the book is not optimal; the diagrams are a little bit grainy. That seems to be true for most of the books in the Fireside Chess Library.