I really liked
Heismann's books recommendation when I started taking chess seriously last year. My first books were
Bain's Chess tactics for students, which is a basic tactics book, it may be a little too basic depending on your level but it's a good first book.
Coakley's Winning Chess strategy for kids I found was a VERY good introduction to strategy in chess and for endgames, Silman's ending course is very good. I also found a .pdf of Chernev's logical chess move by move which is a very good first book of annotated games. Now I'm reading his The most instructive games of chess ever played and I love it.
Anyways, the consensus is that focusing on tactics early on is the best way to get to a decent level, so make that your priority. After working through Bain's book I started
Coakley's Winning chess exercices for kids, I couldn't think of a better book for me right now.
In case you didn't know there's a
fine chess book store near metro Sherbrooke in Montreal. Hope that helps!
Assuming you're in Montreal and you're interested in playing live, there's the Quebec open at the olympic stadium at the end of july (look it up on
www.fqechecs.qc.ca). There are under 1100 and under 1400 sections. Montreal's chess club also runs slow rated games weekly. They're not running it for the summer but it's coming back in september. IMO playing slow live rated tournaments really helps you taking it more seriously.
