Forum for Basic Japanese for reading go books
Finding Japanese Go Books [#156]
Does anyone know any publishers and their name in kanji of Go books? We have a Japanese bookstore nearby (Kinokuniya) and everything is arranged (more or less) by publisher and you have to read the section names in Japanese. It'd be great to have some instructions on navigating a Japanese bookstore to find these aforementioned books to use this handy basic Japanese Go Book guide with.
IIRC, the local Kinokuniya stacks go books under 趣味 (shumi = hobby). Only one or two shelves have go books.
Bob McGuigan: You could ask one of the staff where the books you want are shelved. Even knowing the kanji might not help much if the store is big. I have been to the Kinokuniya store in New York City and the staff there speaks English well
In the Seattle Kinokuniya, the Japanese Go/Shogi books are on the opposite side of the store from the English Go books. Lower shelves between the kids books and the Japanese manga (English and Chinese manga are several asiles over). But then again, they seem to rearrange the entire store every 4-6 months or so and I have to go searching for them all over again.
Bob McGuigan: The easiest source for Japanese books is ![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
http://www.amazon.co.jp They have most of what is in print. Their prices are a lot lower, even including shipping, than those at Kinokuniya. To find the go books start on the left with 和書 (Books in Japanese). Click on that, then on エンターテイメント (Entertainment). Next 囲碁・将棋 (Go and Shogi), then 囲碁 (Go) which will get you to some 105 pages of book listings, some of which are out of print. There is a search option towards the top of the page and you can enter the ISBN number if you know it. You can also arrange the listings in order of popularity or publication date, if you want. Check out can be done in English and there are different shipping options. Usually they ship bulk air to the USA, then USPS ground.
I'd like to second Bob's recommendation. It's a little scary if you don't know Japanese well, but it works fine.
If you don't know the ISBN number, you can copy-n-paste the author's name in kanji into the search box. Some names can be found here on Sensei's Library, 前田 陳爾 is Maeda Nobuaki for example. This will allow you to find the three life and death books of 前田 陳爾.
Bob McGuigan: Just an addendum to my earlier posting. If you are looking for books by a particular author you can paste the kanji for the author's name into the search field or you can find any book by that author, then click on the author's name on the book's page.
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