The Commentaries of Honinbo Shuei

[John Fairbairn]

GoGoD is happy to announce publication of the final part of the Kindle e-book trilogy "The Life, Games and Commentaries of Honinbo Shuei".

This last part is a collection of most of the very few but highly esteemed commentaries made by the "Meijin of Meijin's", Honinbo Shuei (1852~1907), on games by his pupils.

Shuei's commentaries are special in various ways: they advanced the fledgeling art of go commentary significantly; they reflect the fact that for most of his late career he was exclusively a teacher; and they help us better understand his own style, for which he remains outstandingly famous.

Since he never actually played a serious game as a Meijin, these commentaries are also the only direct insight we have into his skill at that time - in his own (translated) words.

The Amazon (US) page is http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN: B00BFZ81CS. The price for this volume is US$3.99.

Part 1 (The Life) of a trilogy "The Life, Games and Commentaries of Honinbo Shuei" was published in May 2012. The Games were then published in four separate volumes (for reasons of file size) and cover professional commentaries on around 80 of his games. The final Commentaries part has 12 games, all presented for the first time in English.

[SoDesuNe]

What a bargain :O

Thank you again! I just read the preface and introduction, since I'm still busy replaying Shuei's games but I'm looking very much forward to reading his commentaries and replaying these games (and see if I can understand anything ^^).

[oren]

Thanks a lot for writing these and making them available.

[lobotommy]

It is $7.37 in Europe... Can't get it why I need to pay a double price...

[HermanHiddema]

The link in the first post didn't work for me, here's one that works: http://www.amazon.com/The-Commentaries- ... B00BFZ81CS

[SoDesuNe]

It is $7.37 in Europe... Can't get it why I need to pay a double price...

Amazon.de tells me it's € 3,08.

[lobotommy]

It is $7.37 in Europe... Can't get it why I need to pay a double price...

Amazon.de tells me it's € 3,08.

Because you are looking at "the better world". "Better" according to Amazon of course. Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain - they get fair prices, same as US. But all 100+ other countries? They are just good enough to pay special Amazon Tax and to be ripped off every time they try to buy an e-book.

This is why I will wait and buy this and other Mr Fairbairn's books via SmartGo, without any sh*tty special taxes. I bought Life of Shuei for $15. One time to be ripped is enough. I will not give any damn cent more to Amazon.

[Dusk Eagle]

You could just use a proxy and easily get around any silly region-based pricing.

[John Fairbairn]

I have just signed a contract today with Anders Kierulf that allows him to publish the Shuei books and also Gateway to All Marvels in SmartGo Kifu format.

I do not know when or in precisely what form these SmartGo books will appear. Anders has taken on the unenviable task of conversion, and I'd expect this to take quite a long time - months rather than weeks (I find that readers tend to underestimate vastly how much work goes into producing go books, so please be patient). He is also considering putting out the games volumes as the first set, rather than starting with The Life (simply because the SmartGo format is shown off better with commentaries than with pure text). I have left those sorts of decision, and pricing, to him.

I mention this solely so that people can decide whether to wait, but the Kindle version remains available already.

There are no plans or even gleams in the eye for a paper version, though I'm not a person to say never.

[Javaness2]

Good for some, but what about us Luddites who like reading books on paper. I am fed up with reading from a screen, I want my paper break. Grumble grumble

[imabuddha]

I do not know when or in precisely what form these SmartGo books will appear. Anders has taken on the unenviable task of conversion, and I'd expect this to take quite a long time - months rather than weeks (I find that readers tend to underestimate vastly how much work goes into producing go books, so please be patient). He is also considering putting out the games volumes as the first set, rather than starting with The Life (simply because the SmartGo format is shown off better with commentaries than with pure text). I have left those sorts of decision, and pricing, to him.

Actually I'll be doing most of the conversion effort, and I'm looking forward to the task!

I can't comment on pricing, etc., that's Anders' call. There's a lot of material in these books, and there are others in my queue as well, so it will indeed be more than a couple of weeks before they're available. It will be worth the wait.

[imabuddha]

Significant progress has been made, so the SmartGo version isn't too far away now.

[lichigo]

Thank you mr fairbairn , your book are very interesting . i almost finished the volume 1
and for sur i will read the others .
i would like to know what is your next kindle book project or you next book ??
I'm a big fan of your book about go seigen too.

[John Fairbairn]

lichigo: Thank you. At this stage I am not planning any further Kindle books - they require too much work by me and sales are too modest. My plans are currently centred on SmartGo Kifu (and still on Slate & Shell if the paper market recovers, of course).

"The Life, Games and Commentaries of Honinbo Shuei" is now ready as a SmartGo book, and is just going through the Apple approval process, I believe. All six Kindle volumes are combined into one at a knock-down price of $19.99. I even enjoyed re-reading it myself in the new format.

My next project for SmartGo is "Today We Have a Splendid Feast", the Meijin Inseki's Yoshin Teiki, which is close to done - might even finish today. I've enjoyed that one more than most works recently - there's something special about re-discovering a forgotten work from 1708, but it happens to be a little jewel anyway.

There are other works bursting to get out of the pipeline, too.

[lichigo]

I see , unfortunately i don't have any apple device so i can forgot smartgo books . but i already seen this and it's very cool. Maybe smartgo on android one day.