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When you say "remarkable top achievements", Robert, do you mean you surprised yourself when reading your book?
Writing a review on one's own book is particularly difficult because one wants to advertise while one should be as objective as possible. The review is written in a style as if I had been writing one of my other reviews (see David Carlton's webpage) but I am aware that this time it may contain more advertisement than usual. That the list of top achievements is somewhat extensive is a sign of this. On the other hand, I have never withheld my praise for other authors' books wherever they deserve it. When a book excels at an aspect, this deserves being mentioned. Since I have written the book with also the intention to achieve those aims, I am of course not surprised. The book has taught myself something though: There are more meanings of the type construction than of destruction, so I have realized that construction is more important than I might wish for the sake of my playing style.
For material of Go theory, my life's motto is "high quality of contents". I have read too many Go books of only intermediate or even low quality while I would love to read much better books on average. So I want to encourage everybody to raise the standard of Go books. I think that my old rec.games.go discussions etc. have already led to a greater percentage of books that teach at least some principles. Why should I contradict my own aims? I love quality so I create it. It will be up to you to judge whether I have succeeded. Most test readers' opinions are encouraging though: "good", "very good" or "excellent" they say.
Robert, can you expand one your statement There are more meanings of the type construction than of destruction, so I have realized that construction is more important than I might wish for the sake of my playing style..
Reading it to indicate that a thick style of play, a style of play that conserves potential and converts it over time to advantage is better (?), more natural (?) to the game, than a style that strives for destroying the opponent's potential.
Firstly look just on the TOC list of chapter 10: I list 9 types of construction meanings but only 4 types of destruction meanings. When you study the typical representative meanings "defense" and "connection" versus "cut" and "attack", then you realize that connection is at least a secondary meaning of most stones and that most of those stones with the meaning cut (like most stones of a large scale cutting group) or attack (like most stones of the groups that attack opposing groups) have also defense and connection as additional meanings. The converse is not true (not every connected stone would also be part of a cutting or attacking group). - My playing style involves cut and kill and I lose a number of games because my surrounding attacking stones are not as well connected as they should be (the opponent exploits the aji, breaks out, and kills part of my fake attacking stones).
I would not go as far as you suggest but whenever one attacks one must be doing so while keeping one's own stones well defended (unless they shall be sacrificed, of course).