Hello,

One of my customers is going to send me to Shanghai in about three weeks I won't stay long, but I thought I could use this opportunity to buy a couple of chinese go books which aren't available in Europe.

Are there titles you could advise me? I'm about 16k now, but I'm willing to buy books which will only be useful later, since it's unlikely I'll travel to China again anytime soon.

I don't speak chinese, but I think it's alright for a problems book, at worst I'll have to work some more because I won't be able to read the explanations

Also, if there's anyone here who knows Shanghai, I won't say no to a tip on where I'm most likely to find go books.

The biggest book shop in Shanghai is at 465 FuZhou Road. Go books are on the ground floor on the right hand side. Unfortunately there aren't many go books, only about two or three shelves. You may want to go to some Go school to get more information about Go books, or buy them on internet.

_________________
长考出臭棋.

Unfortunately, I'll only stay a few days, so ordering on Internet won't be possible, except if the books are shipped to Europe and that's too expensive.

But three shelves of go books is more than I've ever seen in one place anywhere in Germany. Thanks for the tip

围棋死活大全 (weiqi sihuo daquan) Life and Death Encyclopedia
围棋手筋大全 (weiqi shoujin daquan) Tesuji Encyclopedia

These books have large collections of problems. These will be very difficult at 16k, but are worth study as you get better. The first one goes through corner life and death in great detail and classical problem sets. The second one organizes tesuji problems around common themes and uses the occasional example from pro games. You should be able to decipher the solution/variation/failure diagrams if you print out Chinese Go Terms.

I remember one that was something like 800死活问题 (800 life and death problems), but I lost it before I returned to the US. I forget how many problems the book had (200-800), but it had an orange and gray cover, and it was appropriate for me at 5-10k.

It is usually easy to identify the problem books, because they typically have a number written in Arabic numerals in the title.

Have fun in China!

_________________
I am Tartuffe from GoDiscussions.com

Buy the small and thin pocket sized books with smiley faces all over them that are obviously made for elementary school children.

Usually the books will be marked with 上, 中, or 下, which roughly corresponds to easy, medium and advanced. The 下 books should be suitable for 5 kyu to 2 dan or so.

Thanks for the tips. I'm making notes of all that