Out of print go books

    Keywords: Books & Publications

Many fine Go Books are now out of print. Perhaps the best references for these are [ext] David Carlton's Go Bibliography (includes reviews and other information) and Craig R. Hutchinson's [ext] AGA Archive Index (very terse but extremely complete). Places to search for these books include [ext] Amazon Used Books (of course) and the [ext] 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

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.

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.

A Compendium Of Trick Plays

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

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

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.

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. Published by the Nihon Ki-in.

RiffRaff: Originally published back in 1960. Both Ishi Press and Kiseido tried at various points to reprint this book (the G20 number was in fact reserved for it), but apparently it is hopelessly mired in copyright issues. It seems that two different people have copyrights on different parts of the book, and it's impossible to get permission from both of them. I found my copy of the original at [ext] AbeBooks.com (in hardcover, actually).

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.

How To Play Go

By Takagawa Kaku. Published by Nihon Kiin 1956.

[ext] 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 [ext] GoBooks.info page. Once again, my copy was found at [ext] AbeBooks.com. Another source is [ext] eBay.

[ext] 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.

RiffRaff: Another highly recommended (but sadly out of print) book. Found my copy finally after many months of searching on [ext] 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).

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).

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 [ext] AbeBooks.com.

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

The Power of the Star Point

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

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.

Sabaki, How to Manage Weak Stones

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

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).

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: DieSchatzkiste.

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.


This is a copy of the living page "Out of print go books" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2009 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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