Chess Directory
Play
Lichess is a superb site where you can play chess for free. Very popular at all levels.
Chess.com has over 50 million players, a great chess engine and terrific content creators.
Learn
YouTube is perhaps the best place to watch and learn today.
Gotham Chess is IM Levy Rozman’s channel. Very entertaining and loads of great content for beginners.
IM Eric Rosen is another very popular streamer, producing high quality, family-friendly content for players of all levels
Power Play Chess by hugely respected GM Daniel King has terrific content.
Chess24 has some great live streams and informative commentary, but not really for beginners.
Books
I have read all of these books personally.
Logical Chess is a classic and probably my favourite. Each move explained in games you can follow.
Chess: 5334 problems, combinations and games cannot fail to improve your game.
How To Study Chess is, I think, unique in that it literally tells you HOW to study.
Checkmate by Garry Kasparov is worth a look if you’re just starting to play the game.