Out of print go books

Many fine Go Books are now out of print. Perhaps the best references for these are David Carlton's Go Bibliography (includes reviews and other information) and Craig R. Hutchinson's AGA Archive Index (very terse but extremely complete). Places to search for these books include Amazon Used Books (of course) and the AbeBooks.com network of used book stores. The latter can actually store a search for something you're interested in, and notify you by e-mail when new matches come in... even months later.

Note: Kiseido Digital Bookshelf has re-issued five of these books as PDFs in December 2007. The five are: What's your Rating? (also known as Test Your Go Strength), Kato's Attack and Kill, Enclosure Josekis, All About Thickness, and The Breakthrough to Shodan.

Table of contents All About Life and Death Vol 1 & Vol 2 All About Thickness Appreciating Famous Games The Art of Connecting Stones Beyond Forcing Moves The Breakthrough to Shodan A Compendium Of Trick Plays Dictionary of Basic Joseki Vols 2 and 3 Enclosure Josekis Essential Joseki Fundamental series Go A Guide to the Game [GO: International Handbook and Dictionary] Go Proverbs Illustrated The Great Joseki Debates Handicap Go How To Destroy And Preserve How To Play Go Japanese Game of "Go" Kato's Attack and Kill Killer of Go The Middle Game of Go Vol. 1 (reprinted 2007 check Amazon) Modern Joseki and Fuseki Vol. 1 (reprinted 2007 check Amazon) Modern Joseki and Fuseki Vol. 2 (reprinted 2007 check Amazon) The Power of the Star Point Punishing and Correcting Joseki Mistakes Sabaki, How to Manage Weak Stones Strategic Concepts of Go Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go The Thirty-six Stratagems Applied to Go The Treasure Chest Enigma Vital Points of Go Other Comments

All About Life and Death Vol 1 & Vol 2

By Cho Chikun. Published by Ishi Press (G42), (G43); 1993.

All About Thickness

By Yoshio Ishida. Published by Ishi Press (G34); 1990.

Appreciating Famous Games

By Ohira Shuzo. Published by Ishi Press (G25); 1977.

The Art of Connecting Stones

By Wu Piao? and Yu Xing?. Published by Yutopian (Y9)

Beyond Forcing Moves

By Takagi Shoichi. Published by Ishi Press (G37); 1994.

The Breakthrough to Shodan

By Miyamoto Naoki. Published by Ishi Press (G19); 1976.

Anders Kierulf This book is now available in digital form in SmartGo Books.

A Compendium Of Trick Plays

By Ishida Yoshio, Kageyama, Mihori Sho, and Maeda Nobuaki. Published by Yutopian (Y2).

maruseru: The Austrian Go Federation still has a few copies. There's no online shop, though.

Dictionary of Basic Joseki Vols 2 and 3

By Ishida Yoshio. Published by Ishi Press (G22, G23) Source of info: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8505#p8505

Enclosure Josekis

By Takemiya Masaki. Published by Ishi Press (G24); 1983.

Essential Joseki

By Rui Naiwei. Published by Yutopian (Y22) This book has been discontinued by the publisher.

Fundamental series

By Sakata Eio. Published by the British Go association (circa 1971), translated by John Fairbairn

Japanese versions are listed in the BGA archive. However I recently bought a copy of volume 3 - Tesuji.

J077 Kihon shiriizu 1 : Joseki (Fundamental series 1: Joseki); Eio SAKATA; 1961; 221 pp; cased J078 Kihon shiriizu 2 : Fuseki (Fundamental series 2: Fuseki); Eio SAKATA; 1962; 221 pp; cased J079 Kihon shiriizu 3 : Tesuji (Fundamental series 3: Tesuji); Eio SAKATA; 1966; 221 pp; cased

update: the content (diagrams and text) of volume 3 - Tesuji is now available on ebay in sgf format (goplayer2006 I think the seller is). Of course I'm sure he got permission from John F and the BGA to do this otherwise it would be illegal wouldn't it? HughJfan.

Go A Guide to the Game

By D.B. Pritchard. Published by Stackpole Books in 1973.

[GO: International Handbook and Dictionary]

By John S. Tilley.Published by Ishi Press (G4); 1970.

Go Proverbs Illustrated

By Segoe Kensaku. First published by the Nihon Ki-in in 1960, and reprinted many times.

The book is currently mired in copyright issues. Two different people originally shared the copyrights, (the author and the translator), and it's impossible to get permission because both are dead, and which of their heirs owns the rights is unclear.

Although is has been said both Ishi Press and Kiseido tried at various points to reprint this book that is not the case. Although the book codes G20 and K20 have never been used, they were/are reserved for a different book of go proverbs which is still uncompleted as of April 2011.

The Great Joseki Debates

By Honda Kunihisa. Published by Ishi Press (G35); 1992.

Handicap Go

By Nagahara Yoshiaki and Richard Bozulich. Published by Ishi Press (G16); 1982. Listed as K16 by Kiseido until the first print run sold out.

Anders Kierulf This book is available in digital form in SmartGo Books. And updated edition back in print from Kiseido at https://www.kiseidopublishing.com/Begin3.htm#K16, so should be removed from this list?

How To Destroy And Preserve

By Yang Yilun 7p

Aphelionx While this book is currently out of print, it is available in digital format from SmartGo Books. See http://www.smartgo.com/booksbycategory.htm#outofprint for other out of print titles available digitally in SmartGo Books.

How To Play Go

By Takagawa Kaku. Published by Nihon Kiin 1956.

Japanese Game of "Go"

By Mihori Fukumensi.

RiffRaff: Originally published in 1939(!) by Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways. This book is mostly of historical interest now, particularly for the pictures included. You can see scans of them at the GoBooks.info page. Once again, my copy was found at AbeBooks.com. Another source is eBay.

Watch here a slideshow with pictures from "Japanese game of GO" book.

Kato's Attack and Kill

By Kato Masao. Published by Ishi Press (G27); 1983.

German edition available: Die Kunst des Angriffs Strategie und Taktik im Go.

RiffRaff: Another highly recommended (but sadly out of print) book. Found my copy finally after many months of searching on AbeBooks.com. I think the used book store I bought it from was rather shocked that someone was excitedly contacting them about this obscure book the same day it was posted!

Killer of Go

By Sakata Eio. Published by Yutopian (Y1).

Aphelionx While this book is currently out of print, it is available in digital format from SmartGo Books. See http://www.smartgo.com/booksbycategory.htm#outofprint for other out of print titles available digitally in SmartGo Books.

Anders Kierulf Sadly, with Yutopian going out of business without passing their contracts on to a successor, I had to remove this book from SmartGo Books.

The Middle Game of Go Vol. 1 (reprinted 2007 check Amazon)

Modern Joseki and Fuseki Vol. 1 (reprinted 2007 check Amazon)

Modern Joseki and Fuseki Vol. 2 (reprinted 2007 check Amazon)

All by Sakata Eio and published by Ishi Press (G1, G3, G5).

Previously available on line from http://www.wingsgoclub.org/ or from Het Paard. Now out of print.

RiffRaff: There is actually only one volume of The Middle Game of Go. Further volumes were planned, but never materialized. All three of these books have been relatively easy to find (in both hardback and softcover) at AbeBooks.com.

maruseru: The Austrian Go Federation still has a few copies. There's no online shop, though. Furthermore, it's available at Hebsacker and at the Schaak en Gowinkel het Paard.

The Power of the Star Point

By Takagawa Shukaku. Published by Ishi Press (G32); 1988.

German edition available: SANREN-SEI Die Power Eroeffnung.

Fhayashi: managed to find a copy through the used books section of Amazon

RiffRaff: Highly recommended book for anyone who either likes to play, or often plays against, the Sanren Sei. Probably my most often referred to out of print book.

anon: managed to buy this book new through the BGA.

Punishing and Correcting Joseki Mistakes

By Ming Jiu Jiang 7p and Adam Miller

Aphelionx While this book is currently out of print, it is available in digital format from SmartGo Books. See http://www.smartgo.com/booksbycategory.htm#outofprint for other out of print titles available digitally in SmartGo Books.

Sabaki, How to Manage Weak Stones

By Yang Yilun 7p. Published in a limited printing by the Wings Go Club.

Aphelionx While this book is currently out of print, it is available in digital format from SmartGo Books. See http://www.smartgo.com/booksbycategory.htm#outofprint for other out of print titles available digitally in SmartGo Books.

Strategic Concepts of Go

By Nagahara Yoshiaki. Originally published by Ishi Press (G6) in 1972 and reprinted by Kiseido (K6). (K6 is also OOP now)

FHayashi: looked through it at my local go club.

Adamzero: I was able to buy this book new recently from Kiseido. I recommend it highly. It has certainly taught me many things. It's not a particularly easy book, probably most useful to strong kyus or low dans.

Fhayashi: You must have gotten the last copy, because I asked them and they said it was out of print.

Shaydwyrm: I saw a couple copies selling used on Amazon, starting at $139 (!)

maruseru: Someone sold me a nice copy via amazon.co.uk for EUR 14,50 plus shipping, in Feb 2006. Lucky find, really...

Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go

By Sakata Eio. Published by Yutopian (Y6).

Aphelionx While this book is currently out of print, it is available in digital format from SmartGo Books. See http://www.smartgo.com/booksbycategory.htm#outofprint for other out of print titles available digitally in SmartGo Books.

Anders Kierulf Sadly, with Yutopian going out of business without passing their contracts on to a successor, I had to remove this book from SmartGo Books.

The Thirty-six Stratagems Applied to Go

By Ma Xiaochun. Published by Yutopian (Y8).

The Treasure Chest Enigma

By Nakayama Noriyuki. First edition hardcover self published, distributed by Ishi Press (H2); 1984. Second revised edition softcover published by Slate and Shell; 2005. Both OOP as of July 2009. German edition apparently still available: Die Schatztruhe.

Vital Points of Go

By Takagawa Kaku. Published by Nihon Kiin; 1958.

Other Comments

Fhayashi: Quite a few interesting looking go books are out of print. This, combined with similar book titles can cause problems - for instance, I wanted to buy Strategic Concepts of Go and The Power of the Star Point, but accidentally purchased Strategic Fundamentals in Go and Star Point Joseki...

RiffRaff: A Way of Play for the 21st Century was listed here also, but it is currently available from both Slate and Shell and Schaak en Gowinkel het Paard (as of 2005-10-29).

okvonnegut: Concerning digitally copying out-of-print books, see Copying Out-of-Print Go Books.