Others say...

"Significantly Improved My Play, Too"
No book improved my play like this one did. If you're a rank beginner, it's too advanced for you, but if you are in the 1000 to 1700 range, it can drastically help you. Ever wonder what to do once you finish developing all your pieces? You'll never wonder again.

I improved about 150 points in my USCF rating directly as a result of this book. (It REALLY helps against computers, too, because of its emphasis on positional play.)

This book has all the same information as Reassess Your Chess, but this one is MUCH easier to follow. I have both books. Get this one, forget the other.

This will take care of your strategy, for great tactics training see:

Rapid Chess Improvement (Everyman Chess)

Chess Tactics Art 3.0

"Watered Down "
This is a watered down version of How To Reasses Your Chess. I read this after reading HTRYC and the workbook. If you have trouble with HTRYC then read Amateur's Mind first. If you already have HTRYC then don't bother getting Amateur's Mind. You will find all the same stuff but not explained as well.
It was interesting to see how an amateur thinks but studying mistakes is not the best way to learn chess. You need to study what is the right thing to do. Then you will be able to realize when a mistake is made.

PawnMoves
FICS

"Useful, but Falls Between Two Chairs."
IM Silman is the well-known author of "How to Reassess your Chess" ('HTRYC') and "The How to Reasses your Chess Workbook" ('Workbook'). In this book, Silman turns all his frustration and hair-pulling from his students into a book analysing how and why amateurs lose games. Unfortunately, Silman falls between two chairs. He did not decide if he wants to write a book about the *psychological reasons* amateurs make mistakes, or on *how to punish* such mistakes once made. Doing both at once, he also has to give an outline of his thinking technique so that the reader will understand why the moves made *are* mistakes in the first place. The result is a book which is 1/3rd excellent, and 2/3rds mediocre.

Amateurs will identify with the common psychological problems Silman presents and with Silman's perceptive comments on what kind of mistakes these problems tend to cause. For example, Silman notes amateurs are usually either terrified of their opponent's plans or, conversely, do not notivce them at all; the over-the-board result is either losing the initiative without a fight and merely reacting to the opponent's plans, or not stopping the opponent's plans in time. The good player should do neither, notes Silman: he should *objectively evaluate* his opponent's plans and decide whether, in the particular situation, stopping the opponent's plans or continuing undeterred with one's own plans takes precedent. Silman gives many other example on how common psychological flaws (such as "laziness"--"I'll just develop", for example) lead to specific chess mistakes (in this case, making "random" moves without a plan).

Unfortunately the other two parts are not nearly as good. Once we realize what psychological state caused the amatuer to make the chess mistake, we gain little insight from the fact that Silman, an IM, beat a 1500-rated player who played a dozen second-rate moves, especially when Silman deliberately makes bad moves himself just in order to give the opponent another chance to find the correct plan (they almost never do). It would have been better to write a seperate book showing games where one of the players makes one or two moves the Silman method shows are sub-optimal, and the opponents takes advantage of this. Finally, the exposition of the Silman thinking technique itself was done much better in HTRYC and the Workbook.

The result is a book which has about 1/3rd which is excellent and insightful and another 2/3rds that are not. This is not bad: most chess books don't even have a useful 1/3rd of a book in them, and the good 1/3rd in this book is very good indeed. It's only a pity there is so much chaff along with the wheat. This could have been twice the book at half the length.

"Well done"
Another reader criticised the book on several counts, including:

"The book sometimes downplays some moves and labelling them as a certain mistake while computer analysis chooses them as the preferred move. Such as 20.Rxb3? p.72"

I just let Fritz 10 think on that one for 4 hours, and sure enough Rxb3 was the favored move, followed by Nd2, Qd3, and in fourth place was Silman's suggestion, axb3.

So Silman was wrong? Not so fast!

In the first place, the Fritz variation board projects only 8 moves ahead, but the game will likely go a lot longer. (The actual game was stopped after 13). Two weak pawns is a static burden that could make itself felt for twenty, thirty, forty moves, far beyond Fritz' ability to calculate possibilities. Silman has in mind the end-game, not just the next eight moves.

Secondly, the point-spread from Fritz' first choice to fourth was just one-third of a pawn. Any allowance for errors on either side is enough to swamp a small difference like that.

Third, the gist of Silman's comment on axb3 was, 'Better one weakness on b3 than two weaknesses on a2 and c4.' That's a bite-sized piece of wisdom I can use repeatedly, as opposed to the other reader's alternative advice (by implication), 'Play what a computer would play,' which I could never follow in a tournament at all.

Fourth, even if I could play like Fritz in a tournament, the other player will not. Fritz chooses moves using "his" own assessments on both sides of the board. Even if he could see all the way to the end of the game (which he can't), the result is not necessarily ideal.

Silman's book tries to give us pointers we can use as human beings with human opponents. And he does pretty darn well, I think.

"More confusion to the amateur"
I think you should own this book. Since it has a nice collection of positional ideas and tips in one book that you can use to refresh your mind about subjects you already know or know something about. But is this a book who will lift you from amateurdome. No. Here are my reasons:

1- The author talks down on amateurs, and the way he delivers criticism is unconstructive.
2- The author plays down many amateur choices without constructive criticism especially when the amateur idea has some logic behind it. It would've been better instead of saying "the player is wasting his time doing this or that", or "the player is not looking into the real advantage" he should've have hilighted why this is not idea is as good as it seems acknowledging that it has some sense behind it but for particular reasons won't work. After all, most amateurs chose their moves based on some logic. I have to say that this doesn't happen allover the book but in many places.
3- The book can be contradicting from one place to another. For example in a certain chapter, choosing a move that goes with the chapter ideas (space and territory for example) may contradict another move that would go with the idea in a previous chapter. A master would know, but for an amateur, he would go like "but you said I should do this in the last chapter". I think that's the problem with taking chess piece by pieces since at the end chess is a whole. As other reviewers mentioned, there is no putting it all together approach.
4- The book talks very little about tactics and their effects. The whole text is positionally driven. I think the author should hilight that many positionally sound moves are not played because of their bad tactical consequences.
5- The book sometimes downplays some moves and labelling them as a certain mistake while computer analysis chooses them as the preferred move. Such as 20.Rxb3? p.72. And some of the position are not totally lost as he would like us to think.
6- Finally, the book doesn't seem to connect the ideas in the beginning of the chapter well with the games that follows. Sometimes they seem contradictory. For example, in the chapter of space and territory. One of the rules is to not hurry up in taking advantage of the space advantage which kind of doesn't make sense. On the other hand, in the game that follows, he's blaming the amateur for not taking advantage of his space advantage and the weakness of his opponent. More confusion to the amateur.

I agree with other reviewers on the following:
7- Bad moves are bad patterns to see. Reinforcing good patterns is better.
8- Games can get boring after the point has already been made.

In summary, I don't think this book should be your study book on positional concepts. I have "Reassess your chess" but haven't tried it yet. Take everything he says with a grain of salt. However, if you have developed some judgement yourself, you can use what the author is saying as a refresher without paying much attention to his criticism. I'm not saying that his criticism is wrong, but again sometimes it's not constructive, and sometimes it's more confusing because the amateur idea may have some soundness but he doesn't take alot of time to explain its unsoundness, instead he goes to stress the idea of the chapter under question, and then move on to another idea in the next chapter.

If you have a lot of time, play each position with a strong computer, and try to win. You will find out that there is more to the position than what is mentioned.