Bookshop Survey

[Javaness2]

I went into the biggest bookshop in Belfast today, and, as I usually do, I checked out the indoor games section. There was 1 book on chess, and 0 books on Go. Most where on Sudoku, Scrabble, and Poker, with various other card games and IQ things flung in as well.

How are things in your city?

[Kirby]

There is typically around one go book that's intended for beginners in the stores near where I live.

[mic]

How are things in your city?

Here in Kassel, Germany is is the same. At least here are a few books about chess (although quite uninteresting for me).

I've been to Singapur in July and was -- according to my travel guide -- the biggest bookshop in South asia. Besides begin quite small for my european taste there were a handful of Go books, most seemed like introductionary ones. Yes, that was a sad moment for me

- Michael

[lovely]

The B&N nearest to me usually has a few books on Go (a Janice Kim book or two with that one introduction to Go book). I haven't been there in a while, though. Mayhaps I'll check it out tomorrow to see the current selection.

[uglyboxer]

There are 2 shelves, each about 4' long, of Go Books at Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland. I do, however, realize that Powell's is an outlier in many ways.

[xed_over]

There are 2 shelves, each about 4' long, of Go Books at Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland. I do, however, realize that Powell's is an outlier in many ways.

yeah, Powell's is awesome -- and an exception

[Hushfield]

Mainstream bookshops here in Gent, Belgium usually have absolutely no go books whatsoever. There used to be a few copies of Korschelt's 'theory and practice of go' in a large second hand bookshop, presumably overstock that was bought from previously mainstream bookshops.

I guess that's not really what javaness asked, but do you have specialty bookshops where you live? There's one in Gent at a very weird location, somewhat out of town (but luckily it's like a 5 minute walk from my parent's house). The owner's really friendly, and I've bought over 100 different titles there, and they almost always have the latest go world in stock as well.

[Marcus]

Big chain stores here in Ottawa, Canada seem to always have 0-1 Go books and 10-15 Chess books.

I haven't been to a specialty book store, so I don't know about that ...

[gogameguru]

This is the case in most cities in Australia too (I haven't checked them all). Basically no Go books...

The one exception is John Hardy in Brisbane.

That's why I think that it's more effective to make Go books more easily available online. It's apparently a lot of work to do that too though .

[Solomon]

Pretty good, tons of Go books available in many of the bookstores here.

[BobC]

In fairness.. if you went to a bookshop (other than a University bookshop) you wouldn't find many books on physics or maths at a high level..

[John Fairbairn]

In fairness.. if you went to a bookshop (other than a University bookshop) you wouldn't find many books on physics or maths at a high level..

You would in London. You can find shops with a shelf-ful of books on baseball, which amazes me. The game is virtually non-existent here. Yet Foyles has more baseball books than the biggest shop I found in San Francisco. But English go books are hard to come by except in games shops. Foyles usually has a few on go (5-6), but maybe hundreds on chess (though pruning back heavily in recent times, I suspect).

In Los Angeles, Kinokuniya had about 20 go books in Japanese (and also more go than shogi books, which is not unheard of but a little unusual) for which must be a tiny Japanese-reading population. Mark told me it had several English go books, too. I was surprised at how English books there were on origami - dozens.

It's all so patchy. But rather than blame the booksellers, I think we need to accept that the problem is that people don't buy many go books (even from established go publishers). I was told in Santa Barbara that the reason so few book reviews appear in the AGJ is probably that the editors and most of the AGA administrators don't buy go books themselves, so they pay no heed to books. They will publish a review if offered one, but won't actively seek one out, nor are books highlighted in other ways as a valuable resource (e.g. there is no handy list of books that can be passed to booksellers). The same seems to apply in other associations. As individuals they are entitled to ignore books, of course, but as journalists and administrators this seems likes bad journalism and bad administration. Or maybe I'm the one who's out of touch.

[BobC]

Foyles doesn't count!!!

It has almost certainly got books on Go but the place is so large (is it 30 miles of bookshelves?) if you did find a book on go someone would have to be sent out to find you...

[BobC]

whta is curious is that in every book shop I go into there are shelves full of books on Sudoku.... I believe it's a Japanese game played on a grid.. can't see the attraction myself..

[John Fairbairn]

Foyles doesn't count!!!

It has almost certainly got books on Go but the place is so large (is it 30 miles of bookshelves?) if you did find a book on go someone would have to be sent out to find you...

If it's been some time since you went to Foyles you might not realise it has become a proper modern bookshop instead of an Aladdin's cave where, as you say, the Hansel and Gretel trick of dropping stones was necessary to find a way out. Foyles even has two branches now, both in London. Oddly enough, this change was due partly to a go player, Bob Ochser, who wrote in and complained about said logistical exercise (and other things). The head honcho phoned him and asked him in a very long conversation how to put things right.