Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller is another hardbound book.
Thanks for your comments. I wound up adding these two books to the original list.
Capablanca, Chess Fundamentals (Everyman edition)
Chernev, The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played (Batsford ed.)
How about adding the following to your list:
*Pawn Structure Chess, algebraic edition, by Andy Soltis. This is a modern classic.
*Rethinking the Chess Pieces, by Andy Soltis The example games and positions are thought provoking for all levels of player.
*The Genesis of Power Chess, by Leslie Ault A collection of 700 positions which demonstrate the technique of analysis of combinations in the middle game and the endgame.
*Chess Strategy for Club Players, by Herman Grooten Probably mistitled. The material covers a broad scope of middle game thinking.
The above set of books would keep an amateur enthusiast busy for a long time. All are very readable, often without needing a chess set by your side.
Virtually any Andy Soltis book can be added to your list. I particularly like “Karl Marks Plays Chess”, but that title might be a problem for a library book selection committee.
I have Pawn Structure Chess on my nightstand (first read it many moons ago). It would be appropriate: Soltis is originally from Hazleton PA (also anthracite region), and the Shamokin & Hazleton clubs played home & away matches with many many boards during the Fischermania years. The dirty secret about chess books is that many don’t read in front of a board: IMO this is one of those books where playing through the game is essential. (I find the game on the ChessBase iPad app & click thru.)
Karl Marx is a fun read.
Grooten was on my nightstand last year: that is an excellent recommendation, too.
I will check out the other books, which I haven’t read.
My selection is woefully weak on post-1970 chess: the rest of My Great Predecessors and the other two Kasparov series would partly fill the lack, but that would’ve blown my budget. OTOH, I worried that too many post-1970 books would be over the heads of amateurs. I got Anish Giri’s pamphlet After Magnus the other day & played thru the games in a couple sittings—found myself wishing there were more books like that.
How would you change the list for an elementary school library? (I would add all of Coakley, the Bain tactics workbook, and make most of the “grownup” books disappear.)
For a high school library? (The Alburt series, perhaps?)
For a high school with lotsa money? (The Yusupov “Chess Evolution” series?)
For a prison?
Weapons of Chess (Pandolfini)?
I don’t recall Pandolfini discussing techniques for turning bishops into shanks .
Someone asked me this a couple years ago (for her son doing nontrivial time), and I think I suggested the two Reinfeld “1001” books: 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations and 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate. Wasn’t there a “prison chess library” thread on this forum many years ago? A quality prison library could done for a song with donated books in descriptive notation.
Since you mentioned Pandolfini (if only in jest), which P books are essential for schools and at what level? I think Beginning Chess and Endgame Course are really good and the two Traps & Zaps books are above average. Don’t really know the other books.
Of the many fine books in Alburt’s Comprehensive Chess Course series, volume 2 is the standout IMO.
Bill, I think your next thread should be a list of the best book by authors with last names for each letter of the alphabet.
For example, A might be Alexander Alekhine’s Best Games by Alekhine, Algebraic Edition, with material by Alexander and Nunn and forward by Kasparov.
I was typing on an iPad: I meant P for Pandolfini alone.
There are best books (some edition of Alekhine’s best games belongs on that list), and there are best books for a particular audience (for many young players and a few dedicated adult amateurs, the Alekhine book will be largely beyond them).
I would add:
The Psychology of the Chess Player [Reuben Fine]
Great Brilliancy Prize Games of the Chess Masters [Fred Reinfeld]
100 Chess Gems [P. Wenman]
The latter two are particularly nice because the analysis is not excessive. For me, too many game analyses these days are far, far too detailed to be of any use. Exploring so many alternate “lines” in so much depth makes it impossible for me to follow the game.
This is a smart observation. It is very hard to resist the temptation to quote computer analysis that few if any humans can understand. Chess is very hard, too hard to master in a lifetime, but much of its beauty is very much accessible to beginners to intermediate players. The Mammoth Book of the World’s Greatest Chess Games is a great collection, and it’s generally reader-friendly, but some of the variations are pretty darn intimidating to us amateurs. I included it because it’s a great value for the price.
I mistakenly thought that Seirawan’s Winning Chess Brilliancies (originally published by Microsoft) was out of print, but the Everyman edition is very much in print. If you like the Reinfeld collection, you’d also enjoy the Seirawan, and I’d add that to my library shopping basket if I had a do-over. There are only a dozen games, and lots of explanatory text. Incidentally, the whole Seirawan Winning series is excellent (and most of the series is even available at a reasonable price in a well-known ebook format).
Fine wrote so many classic chess books; Psychology is famously controversial. I don’t take it too seriously, but it is a fun read!
Here I thought we might end up with a Gashlycrumb Tinies version of recommended chess literature.
Analysis set. 
Exactly. A lot of the “psychology” was out of date when I purchased the book in the mid-1970s, but it is indeed a fun read. It contains a lot of interesting biographical data, something I always wished Chess Life had more of.
Perhaps his Endgame Workshop would be of interest.