Re: Chess: want to get better fast
NO!
This is a reference book and should not be 'read' in any way resembling the way most people read books. Reading and re-reading is HORRIBLE advice for a beginning to get serious chess player.
At your level you're more than fine picking out an opening at random -- finding an actual book on it from solid authors and learning it that way.
I'd actually recommend *against* getting MCO-13 at this point in your development.
The Amateurs Mind by Silman is just so-so IMHO. I think it's worthwhile to start in with a more advanced book even if you're perhaps in a bit over your head.
In actuality one of the best ways to get better at chess is to look over strong Grandmaster games that are annotated by other strong Grandmasters (Silman is not a GM (not even as close as one would think) and his books suffer but not too much b/c he usually just finds GM games already annotated on and just explains them clearly to the relative notice -- which he is really good at).
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