I'd like to comment here that the CC-by-SA license on the work means that others can make printed versions. The OP made it clear that I was consulted, but you don't even have to do that. The licensing conditions are (a) attribution and (b) retain the license on the derived work.

I've made clear to some people the unhappy early history of Shape Up!, as far as dealing with the existing publishers was concerned. It is flattering that the effort has been made, nearly two decades on from the writing of the book, to bring out a hard copy version.

Supposing that the "book on shape" (kyu-level sub-board pattern matching and reifying approach done with some sort of system) still meets a demand post-AlphaGo, it would be interesting, surely, to target shapeful plays in pro go with the critical analysis bots can give. Maybe I won't write such a book (I have other fish to fry).

To be clear, my comment referred to the quality of that particular printing, not the quality of the text.

_________________
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At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

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I think that Shape Up's continued popularity has shown that the publishers perhaps made something of a mistake in thinking that the text's viability had had the life squeezed out of it by other books.

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North Lecale

Very much "don't get me started". I have always questioned whether the go publishers in English had the needs of the game in Europe (say) clearly in mind. The market for books is (maybe "was") the 2 kyu to 2 dan player.

Before go servers, getting up to 2 kyu was a real problem for western players. A small number of books are really helpful. Then 2 dan to 5 dan is of course really tough, and books may help, but probably not if they are treated as textbooks.

I have certainly not seen any encouragement from publishers of the kind of "steady seller" book, written by amateurs for weaker amateurs, that there could be. Quite the opposite. Much of the Asian literature is derived from go journalism, which probably captures some really interesting stuff, but is more of a disposable format by its nature.

Anyway 15 years ago I had good reason to move on.

The Diagram line thickness is inconsistent in the PDF already, as I explained above, IIRC (I guess they were simply sucked from Gobase.org).
The kerning of the boxed sans-serif text is whacked in the PDF already.
The headlines seem OK in the PDF (maybe due to the fonts installed on my computer) but not in the printed book.

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

Interesting. That means if we "repair" that, a new version could been much cleaner?

That may be worth doing

From https://forums.online-go.com/t/shape-up ... date/24038:
—> https://cdn.online-go.com/shape_up_v1.2.pdf

Looks a LOT better now IMO.

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?