I've been doing a lot of googling lately about Go books, but what helped me the most was asking specifically for "good introductory texts" in a very active Go facebook group. The problem is that there are many well-reasoned views on why you should get almost every book that gets brought up, and I had originally intended to get 2-3 books max.

So, imagine this:

[list=][*]You're a high ddk who started playing a little over a month ago, you already know ANY book would be too advanced for you right now, but you're thinking ahead.

[*]Once you're past 20k you'd like a formal introduction to the game and its fundamentals, hence you're pretty much set on getting Iwamoto's (Honinbo Kunwa's) "Go For Beginners", as you're no longer an absolute newbie and you don't feel like spending all that dough on Janice Kim's 5 books.

[*]A long time from that, right around the time you break into sdk, you're pretty much set on getting Kageyama's "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" because it's a book that'll be relevant your entire "career" and you'd finally be able to understand some of it.

[*]You have no shortage of Tsumego from here onto 5D because you've downloaded and already started printing wbaduk's problems, Chikun Cho's encyclopedia of life and death, the gokyo shumyo, the gengen gokyo and even the hatsuyoron.

[*]Your concern, is that you feel you're missing crucial study on fuseki, joseki, and the endgame, so you've given some thought to getting Bozulich's "Winning Go" and reading it some time between the other two books, but you're just not sure.[/list]

What would you do? what book(s) would you change, add or subtract? would you stick to that overall order or would you shake things up?

Well, I would not read go for beginners if you have reached 20k - it will be too easy. If you are talking about three books to get you through several levels I would recommend one on the openening, one on L&D and one on tesuji. The three in the elementary go series are good ones, but there are also other choices. At this stage you do not need a book on joseki.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Below 20k, book recommendations are still hard. I would want to recommend books with certain contents (and only that contents and none of the more advanced contents, but also not missing too much relevant contents for the range) but those books do not exist yet. If you want to learn already from books, some choice of below-20k-books is maybe about as good or bad as every other such choice. E.g., I might suggest Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 2 but it could happen that you find it too difficult and need to start with Vol. 1. If, however, I recommend that one, the contrary could happen. Given this problem, have you tried to become 20k (if not 15k) without books quickly from advice from other players?

For 20k to 10k, your cited suggestions are misleading because they miss the single most important book for this range of playing strengths: First Fundamentals. It serves this purpose because it describes every frequent mistake of every player in this range, and no other book does likewise.

You ask for 3 books, but every other two books I would choose at random to some extent for your current or soon anticipated level. For 13 kyu or stronger, suggesting 3 specific books is much easier.

My club's reading list starts with The Second Book of Go, after which are (in no particular order) Opening Theory Made Easy, Attack and Defense, Tesuji, and Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.

1. Get your games reviewed by a stronger player, say on the go teaching ladder

2. Buy and study the book: Fundamental Principles of Go by Yilun Yang

No book will help you unless you try to apply things in your own games.

What is the purpose of suggesting Attack and Defense, Tesuji, Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go and Fundamental Principles of Go to an OGS 23k and hopefully soon above 20k? Such are books for 13k+ or partly 5k+. The Second Book of Go contains both beginner information and above-beginner information (capturing races; beginners need much more basic advice on capturing races than in that book...).

The original question asks for a book to read now, one to read "around the time you break into sdk" and one to read "in between", so those could be fine choices for the second and/or third category

Fair interpretation, ok, for this view I suggest: now Graded Go Problems for Beginners 2, in between First Fundamentals, to break to SDK choose either Tesuji (Davies) or Lessons in the Fundamentals.

HermanHiddema, thank you for clarifying what I was thinking.
RobertJasiek, thank you for clarifying the difficulty levels of the books.

That's pretty much what I was asking; thank you for explaining it better to everyone else, although I wouldn't say one book for "now" but rather one for "soon", specially now that a lot of you are basically saying that I should wait 'til I reach 15-13k, and that's perfectly fine by me. One thing I find interesting here is that you're telling me to skip Iwamoto's book altogether and wait a few ranks 'til I can read First Fundamentals by Jasiek; cool, I had never even heard of the book but I'll most certainly look into it.

As for what gowan is saying, yeah, of course playing is the most important part of growing, I never intended to skip my weekly (sometimes daily) sessions. And yes, I'll ask some 1k/1d players to review me.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that Jasiek recommends it.

Yes, because I have, for decades, instead recommended very strongly less suitable books until my book has been available. I recommend every suitable book, but if there is a limit on numbers of books to be recommended, I recommed the most suitable books.

For what it's worth I liked Roberts book, I think it's definitely worth a look. It reminded me of and extended version of "how not to play Go"

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I am John. John-I-Am.