Life In 19x19

I hope I'm posting in the right place. A cursory search for the book titles didn't yield much information. I'm also investigating the books on Sensei's Library.

When I dug into the catalog, it looked like the local library didn't have much to offer in the way of Go. There was a novel that featured go, some anime, and an arbitrary beginner's book. When I went searching for the beginner book, I found "The Theory and Practice of Go" and "The Game of Go - The National Game of Japan".

Are either of these books worth digging into or are there any flaws in them I should know about? The annotated games in the back of The Game of Go looked interesting. I plan to skim through them and maybe work a couple of problems through the holiday, return them, and then pick them up again individually for closer study. I'm trying to work through Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go right now, so I don't have much time for other reading material.

Just play. Play. Play. And play. Enjoy.

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is a book you can return to many times
during your Go adventures, even after many years. No hurry.

Which novel was it -- First Kyu, The Girl Who Played Go, or another book ?

http://www.gobooks.info/smith.html
http://www.gobooks.info/korschelt.html

EdLee wrote:Just play. Play. Play. And play. Enjoy.

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is a book you can return to many times
during your Go adventures, even after many years. No hurry.

Which novel was it -- First Kyu, The Girl Who Played Go, or another book ?

The Girl Who Played Go. The abstract didn't look to interesting, so I passed it up.

I've been playing quite a bit and I'm always enjoying it. I haven't been quite this excited about something other than my family or work in a long time. While it's occasionally frustrating, it's a level of enjoyment that's hard to find.

Go books in libraries very from rare to non-existent in most places. Fortunately there are many free resources online like Sensei's Library and goproblems.net that can fulfill your study requirements as a DDK. You can also find some stuff on Youtube with dan level players talking through their games as they play them which is interesting.

Just doing problems and playing games is definitely a valid path to greater strength at both your and my level. Any added theory or game study is a bonus. This is definitely a hobby where at the start you need to spend no money unless you choose to.

cmhobbs wrote:I hope I'm posting in the right place. A cursory search for the book titles didn't yield much information. I'm also investigating the books on Sensei's Library.

When I dug into the catalog, it looked like the local library didn't have much to offer in the way of Go. There was a novel that featured go, some anime, and an arbitrary beginner's book. When I went searching for the beginner book, I found "The Theory and Practice of Go" and "The Game of Go - The National Game of Japan".

Are either of these books worth digging into or are there any flaws in them I should know about? The annotated games in the back of The Game of Go looked interesting. I plan to skim through them and maybe work a couple of problems through the holiday, return them, and then pick them up again individually for closer study. I'm trying to work through Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go right now, so I don't have much time for other reading material.

Both books antedate Ishi Press. Newer books are better. The Korschelt is OK, but go with interlibrary loan.

cmhobbs wrote:The Girl Who Played Go. The abstract didn't look to interesting, so I passed it up.

One interesting thing is Shan Sa is a Chinese woman who grew up in China,
moved to France, wrote it in French, and won awards for it.
(I could only read it in English. ) Very international.

As an aside to the "just play" replies, my interest in the books is that I can't play all the time. I have a very limited window every evening to get a game in given my commute and my family. I like to have books around so I can read a bit or work problems between life's gaps in time. I no longer carry a smartphone, so I can't have the game in my pocket at all times.

I may give The Girl Who Played Go a read eventually. I have a stack of other novels to read before I can consider it, though.

I just wanted to give a bump to inter-library loan (ILL) here. Even if your local library system doesn't stock much in the way of go books, ILL gets you access to hundreds more. Just check with your local branch and they should show you the ropes of searching and requesting.

I've found it a great way to check out many books that I wouldn't be willing to plunk down $ for.

Bruce "Bookie" Young

BaghwanB wrote:I just wanted to give a bump to inter-library loan (ILL) here. Even if your local library system doesn't stock much in the way of go books, ILL gets you access to hundreds more. Just check with your local branch and they should show you the ropes of searching and requesting.

I've found it a great way to check out many books that I wouldn't be willing to plunk down $ for.

Bruce "Bookie" Young

Good call! I use the heck out of ILL, though I never considered it for Go books.

Depending on how viable printing quite a few pages out is for you:

A friend of mine in his student days got a lot of mileage out of printing off sections of L&D problems and solving them on the bus etc: http://tsumego.tasuki.org/

Boidhre wrote:Depending on how viable printing quite a few pages out is for you:

A friend of mine in his student days got a lot of mileage out of printing off sections of L&D problems and solving them on the bus etc: http://tsumego.tasuki.org/

Awesome, thanks for the resource!