Those whose interest in go transcends the latest 4-4 point joseki may wish to note a new book Tenchi Meisatsu (Insights into the Universe) by Ubukata To in Japan. It is the result of 16 years of research into the life of Shibukawa Shunkai, who go players may know better as Yasui Santetsu II. The book has already won the 2010 Booksellers' Grand Prize and the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize.

As a 17th century go player Shibukawa was said by Dosaku to be of 7-dan level, but he is better known in Japan as the foremost expert of his time on astronomy, at which he became expert by studying the latest Chinese books based on imported European principles, and by making his own astronomical observations.

A revised version of the calendar (the first by a Japanese) is due to him, at imperial request, and because of his involvement with this from 1683 he ceased playing castle go. His new Jokyo era calendar was issued in 1684 and was used for 70 years. His reward was to be appointed by the shogunate to the Astronomical Institute (Tenmonkata) and in that capacity he changed his name to Shibukawa (the original name of the Yasui family) in 1702 and retired in 1711-XII. He published many books on astronomy. His astronomy supposedly inspired a famous castle game against Dosaku in 1671 when he played first move on the centre point (but lost by 9 points). It is said that from this that the go term tengen (origin of heaven) may come.

Ubukata's interest in Shibukawa is precisely because of a shared interest in calendars. In fact the Ubu part of the very peculiar penname is a calendrical term, meaning "beginning", and the last part will also be familiar from the sexagesimal calendar. You will infer from this that the book (a novelised version of Shibukawa's life) is not really a go book, and in fact Ubukata professes not to play go (his normal genres are SF and manga). Still, it does entwine go into the story line, and at 475 pages for only 1890 yen this is a book that will impress the socks off anyone perusing your bookshelf, even if left unread. It is published by Kadokawa.

Incidentally, since Ubukata spent part of his childhood in Nepal and seems to have acquired an interest in calendars from that time, it would be fascinating to hear what he thinks of An Yeong-i's musings on the possible influence of the lotag chuni (the Tibetan zodiac) on the 12 starting stones in Tibetan go.