[The Complete Book of Chess Strategy][1] by Silman. Just saw this yesterday for the first time and its the first Chess Book I felt I had to spend the money on. Simple, easy to digest and full of tactics and strategy. I'm already finding myself playing better in just one day as a direct result. I find a lot of the above books to either be to loaded with notation and grand master games to be useful to a beginner, or in the case of Collins' *Understanding Chess Openings*, to be a bit over the top in his language.

Compare if you will:

>We would need an obviously logical move and unfortunately such abstention is justified by the fact that Black, by most accounts, has a pretty easy route to equality in all variations. Attention has thus moved away from the Italian Game, with its more durable neighbour the Spanish Game (Ruy Lopez) proving a more promising route to an enduring edge for White.

*-Collins*

There's just much easier ways to say the same ideas. All he does is make it more confusing.

Compare that with some text from Silman:

>While the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5) and the French Defense (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5) both strive to gain a central foothold with a defended d5-pawn, the Caro leads to calmer positions than its French brother. On the positive side, the move ...c6(instead of ...e6) keeps the c8-h3 diagonal open for Black's light-squared Bishop. The negative side of this opening revolves around the fact that ...c7-c5 followed by a later ...c6-c5 means that Black will try to slow the play down.

*-Silman*

Silman's book is just great in my opinion for beginners because of how clear and easy to use it is.

  [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Chess-Strategy-Grandmaster/dp/1890085014