Are there any decent self-teaching books?

[Bob]

I don't think I've ever seen any.  Even with method books, you still need someone to explain what's going on on that page.  There's usually not much explanation.

I keep noticing posts for people asking for those.  I checked Amazon and did see some, but I'm thinking those are just "This is a quarter note" type of books. 

Are there any out there?  Anything even halfway decent?

I do know of a jazz book that looked interested and was something you would go through on your own.  (Still on my to do list...)

Even when I was looking a bit I kept thinking it would almost have to have a DVD or at least audio CD with it.  A book by itself probably isn't going to cut it.

[pianist1976]

Even with method books, you still need someone to explain what's going on on that page

I completely agree. Everything that sounds to "self-learning" sounds scary (and dangerous) to me. No book can substitute a good teacher. (I had in my beginnings very bad teachers so it can be said that my piano starting was almost self-taught, a really bad experience, years after I had good teachers but that's another story...)

For intermediate level and advanced I know the free C. Chang method, intended to self-improvement but, in my opinion, it has many problems, inaccuracies and disputable points. It has some interesting points but it cannot substitute a teacher. They are much more better the famous books by Neuhaus and Leimer but in my opinion they are useless without a minimum (I'd better say a big...) background in technique and music interpretation.

I also remember the hungarian Jozef Gat's method. It's very complete and with many pictures, photographs  and photograms of movements but I think that it's out of print since some decades ago (I also haven't a copy, my teacher has one in russian).

[quantum]

I think that a successful self-teaching book would deal with the teaching and learning processes.  Especially the tool set one needs to teach one self.  We learn these self-learning tools when we study with a teacher, but I've seen little of these in method books. 

It's more an issue of learning techniques, rather than the material one is learning.

[okoie]

I found useful two books:g.sandor"on piano playing" and  ebook of c. chang.May be because I was a medicine student I found the first easy to understand.I applied the gravity drop,the rotation and parallel set and solved old problems ( I play classical music).I suggest you to try.Okoie