Durham Go Club has a reasonably extensive library, owing much to a one-time player, Brian Wilson, and his widow, who passed his equipment and library to the club after his death. We are all very grateful for this. This library has been gradually supplemented with problem books and other purchases, and with "long-term loans" of books from members who have got beyond the level of some of their books. In addition, most members are more than willing to lend any books they have to other club members, and so we include these books here.
Opinions differ hugely on the value of study from books. Consensus is certainly that the best way to improve at Go is to play, and play, and play, particularly if you can play stronger players. However, most people agree that at certain stages, various sorts of study can be valuable. I have heard some of the strongest players I know argue over specifics, so don't worry if you hear a passionate opinion one way or the other. If you feel inclined to read a book, read it! If a stronger player who knows you recommends a book, too, it's probably worthwhile - they are in a good position to gauge your precise situation. And if, of course, like Russell Haswell, you are unable to play anyone - in Russell's case because of the months he spends at sea! - probably reading books and doing problems is better than nothing!
If you have books which you'd like to see included/are willing to lend, please let us know!
Note: where there is currently no comment, don't read this as a reflection on the book - I haven't read all of the books myself and not everyone's given me opinions! Leading on from that, if you have an opinion on any of these books, we're always happy to add it
If you would like to borrow any of these books, please ask the respective owner. Club books are currently held by the Bishop. If you can't get hold of the owner at a meeting, we can provide an email address for you.
| Owner | Title | Author/Editor | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rich Bentley | Attack and Defense | Ishida Akira and James Davies | |
| Club (x2) | Oriental Games | R.C. Bell | |
| Club and Rich Bentley | The Protracted Game: A Wei-ch'i Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy | Scott A. Boorman | Completely ridiculous. |
| Club (x2) and Rich Bentley | Mastering the Basics: One Thousand and One Life-and-Death Problems | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Mastering the Basics: Five Hundred and One Tesuji Problems | Richard Bozulich | |
| Club and Rich Bentley | Mastering the Basics: The Basics of Go Strategy | Richard Bozulich | |
| Club | The Go Player's Almanac 2001 | Richard Bozulich | This is a rich tome containing many fascinating facts and beautiful photographs. It discusses Go's history, including the legends surrounding its invention, Go equipment, Go rules, Go in Art and various other topics. |
| Club and Rich Bentley | Get Strong at Invading | Richard Bozulich | Volume 5 in the "Get Strong at Go" Series |
| Rich Bentley | Get Strong at the Opening | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Get Strong at Joseki I | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Get Strong at Joseki II | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Get Strong at Joseki III | Richard Bozulich | |
| Club and Rich Bentley | Get Strong at Tesuji | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Get Strong at the Endgame | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Get Strong at Life and Death | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Get Strong at Attacking | Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Positional Judgement | Cho Chikun | 'High speed game analysis' |
| Club | The Magic of Go | Cho Chikun | Cho Chikun is one of the most famous Go pros of all time; in this book, he teaches Go within a framework of its cultural and historical interest as well as its simplicity and strategic and tactical interests. It's probably not an ideal book to actually learn from, but it is extremely interesting to read. (Paul Callaghan) --- Cho Chikun is an extremely famous Go professional of recent years - born in Korea and trained in Japan from the age of 6. (Jenny Radcliffe) --- A beginner's book but suffers from the rather odd assumption that the reader knows the rules before the author actually teaches the rules. Each chapter begins with a couple of notes about Go history and culture. These are rather good but I would recommend it only for interest. Too much Japanese lingo for me. (Russell Haswell) |
| Club | Go Problems for Kyu Level Players: Volume 2: Uplifting Exercises | William S Cobb | |
| Rich Bentley | The Official British Go Association Song Book | Compilation | Does what it says on the tin. Great for long car journeys. |
| Rich Bentley | Weiqi Rapid Drill 800 Problems | Compilation | Big book of go problems. Chinese, but easy to follow (essential characters annotated) |
| Rich Bentley | Heading for Shodan - Fundamental Problem Collection 1-3 | Compilation | Volumes 1-3 include tesuji, fuseki and joseki problems respectively. Chinese, but easy to follow (essential characters annotated) |
| Club | The World of Weiqi | Compilation? | (Non-English) |
| Club and Paul Callaghan | An Introduction to Go | James Davies and Richard Bozulich | A simple introduction to the game, for beginners. |
| Club and Rich Bentley | Tesuji | James Davies | Volume 3 in the "Elementary Go Series", suitable for double-figure kyu players who wish to improve their short-range tactical fighting skills, and indeed for anyone up to 5 kyu to practice, since it contains a lot of interesting problems. |
| Club and Rich Bentley | Life and Death | James Davies | Volume 4 in the 'Elementary Go Series'. |
| Club | The Middle Game of Go | Sakata Eio | A dense book with detailed analysis of many different variations of simple middle game positions. |
| Club | Modern Joseki and Fuseki: Volume 1 - Parallel Fuseki | Sakata Eio | |
| Club | Modern Joseki and Fuseki: Volume 2 - The Opening Theory of Go | Sakata Eio | |
| Club (x2) | The Hitachi 36th European Go Congress, Canterbury 1992 - Compendium of Games | EuroGo News | |
| Rich Bentley | 400 Years of Go in Japan | Andrew Grant | Account of the development of modern go in Japan. |
| Club | Opening Theory Made Easy | Otake Hideo | Twenty Strategic Principles to Improve your Opening Game. Called "Elementary" by the BGA Bookshop, it's probably suitable for 15 kyu to 5 kyu players. |
| Rich Bentley | First Kyu | Sung-Hwa Hong | Allegedly 'a compelling, insightful and haunting tale of love, sacrifice, the search for excellence, and Go -- the world's oldest game' |
| Rich Bentley | Hikaru No Go 1-8 | Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata | Go manga |
| Rich Bentley | Key Concepts in Life and Death - Inside Moves and Under the Stones Techniques | Richard Hunter | |
| Rich Bentley | Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races | Richard Hunter | |
| Club and Rich Bentley | Dictionary of Basic Joseki: Volumes 1-3 | Yoshio Ishida | |
| Club and Rich Bentley | In The Beginning | Ikuro Ishigure | Volume 1 in the 'Elementary Go Series' |
| Rich Bentley | Go for Beginners | Kaoru Iwamoto | |
| Club | The 1971 Honinbo Tournament | Kaoru Iwamoto | |
| Club | Go: Step by Step | Frank Janssen | |
| Club | Pair Go | Japanese Pair Go Association | Pair Go is, as implied by the name, where two players play as a team. Formally, one should be male and the other female. |
| Rich Bentley | Fighting Ko | Jin Jiang | |
| Club | Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go | Kageyama | This book is immensely fun to read and provides an useful guide to a kyu player of any level on how to attack stronger players. Kageyama's writing style is engaging and inspiring. |
| Club (x2) and Rich Bentley | Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go | Kageyama | Essential reading. |
| Rich Bentley | Dictionary of Basic Fuseki: Volumes 1-2 | Rin Kaiho | |
| Rich Bentley | The Direction of Play | Takeo Kajiwara | |
| Rich Bentley | The Master of Go | Yasunari Kawabata | Chronicles the last game of Shusai's (one time Honinbo) career. |
| Rich Bentley | Go - The World's most Fascinating Game, Volumes 1 and 2 | Nihon Ki'in | Not really very good, according to Rich. |
| Rich Bentley | Nihon Ki'in Small Encyclopedia Volume 1: Proverbs | Nihon Ki'in | The Nihon Ki'in is one of the Japanese professional Go associations. This book is probably most useful to players between 15 kyu - 5 kyu. It assesses a small number of Go proverbs and discusses where they do and do not apply. |
| Rich Bentley | Nihon Ki'in Small Encyclopedia Volume 2: Fuseki | Nihon Ki'in | |
| Club (x2) and Rich Bentley | 38 Basic Joseki | Kiyoshi Kosugi and James Davies | Volume 2 in the "Elementary Go Series", Gerry Mills (the BGA Bookseller) considers it as "elementary" and Edwin says it makes an interesting introduction to the sort of shapes that appear in the opening, but should not be memorised. |
| Club and Rich Bentley | The Game of Go | Matthew MacFadyen | Matthew MacFadyen has been British Go Champion for 20 (non-consecutive) years and this book has interest for that alone. It is intended for complete beginners, being the book that accompanies a simple card board and plastic stones. |
| Stuart Watson | Teach Yourself Go | Charles Matthews | Charles is a regular contributor to Jan van der Steen's Go Base, the newsgroup rec.games.go and the Wiki Sensei's Library. Although this book is for beginners, there is plenty of information crammed into it and players up to 10 kyu should benefit from reading it, especially the later chapters. --- Russell's notes to me on his books say only "superb"! |
| Club | Be a Master at Go | Charles Matthews | |
| Club | What's Your Rating? | Naoki Miyamoto | This book presents exercises and from your (multiple-choice) answers assign you a grade between 6 kyu and 7 dan. Edwin, currently 3 kyu, was assigned 2 dan in the opening; Leigh Callaghan, who doesn't play, got 4 dan ... taking this book seriously may cause mockery at tournaments, but the problems are interesting and your ultimate score may amuse. |
| Club | Strategic Concepts of Go | Nagahara | |
| Rich Bentley | The Treasure Chest Enigma | Nakayama Noriyuki | Essays, game commentaries, some problems |
| Club and Rich Bentley | Appreciating Famous Games | Shuzo Ohira | |
| Club and Rich Bentley | The Endgame | Tomoko Ogawa and James Davies | Volume 6 in the "Elementary Go Series", Gerry Mills (the BGA Bookseller) considers it "elementary" level, and Edwin says that while he found it tedious he also got stronger at the endgame as a result of reading it. It would probably be challenging but worthwhile reading for a double-figure player. |
| Club | The Art of Go Series: Vol. 1 - Connecting Stones | Wu Piao and Yu Xing | This book consists of a series of plausible problems - the sort which can occur in any game - and their solutions, along with discussion of why the solutions given are correct. The problems range from very simple to so complex that I don't fully understand them even if I read the explanations! It is aimed at approximately 7k and a little higher, I believe, and is well worth looking at. |
| Rich Bentley | The Power of the Star Point | John Power | Translation from Takagawa's book 'Sanrensei no Iryoku' |
| Rich Bentley | Invincible | John Power | A collection of the games of Shusaku |
| Rich Bentley | Catching Scent of Victory | O Rissei | Volume 2 in the (currently incomplete) 'The Heart of Go Discovery Series'. Translated by Robert J. Terry |
| Club | ??? 2008 | Igo Ryozanpaku | (Non-English) |
| Club | ??? 2009 | Igo Ryozanpaku | (Non-English) |
| Club, Paul Callaghan and Rich Bentley | The Girl Who Played Go | Shan Sa | A novel based around Go; opinions vary on how much the author actually knows about the game. |
| Club and Rich Bentley | A Way of Play for the 21st Century | Go Seigen | |
| Rich Bentley | Dictionary of Basic Tesuji: Volumes 1-3 | Fusjisawa Shuko | |
| Rich Bentley | Changing One's Conceptions - Awaji's Aphorisms | Awaji Shuzo | Voume 4 in the (currently incomplete) 'The Heart of Go Discovery Series' |
| Club | Go: International Handbook and Dictionary | John S Tilley | |
| Rich Bentley | Yang's Workshop Lectures 1-3 | Yilun Yang | |
| Rich Bentley | Fundamental Principles of Go | Yilun Yang | |
| Club (x2) and Rich Bentley | Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 2 | Kano Yoshinori | The club has (at least) two copies of this volume, which is aimed at 20k to 25k players according to the cover but is generally recognised as being useful up to at least 15k and probably higher. |
| Paul Callaghan and Rich Bentley | Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 3 | Kano Yoshinori | Aimed at 15k to 20k players according to the book itself, but with most people finding it useful in the 5k to 15k range. |
| Club | Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 4 | Kano Yoshinori | Advanced problems |
| Rich Bentley | Mastering the Basics: Five Hundred and One Opening Problems | Rob bon Zeijst and Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Mastering the Basics: Making Good Shape | Rob bon Zeijst and Richard Bozulich | |
| Rich Bentley | Mastering the Basics: All About Ko | Rob bon Zeijst and Richard Bozulich |
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