I have the 3 books.
My opinion: they are great!
The work of Mr. Fairbairn compiling the data, the historical references, the geography and his excellence in writing and even working of the little details of what happened during the development of the game is amazing and shows a great devotion to the work and to the Go.

You will have access not only to the analysis compiled by the author, but also a better understanding of Go history, anecdotes and sometimes, humor ("Fujisawa Kuranosuke is very good at fuseki" & "White 8 is bad" ... read them to find out!! )

Dkzn

My comment from before was not to say that I didn't like books by John Fairbairn. It was just that the book that Araban was offering for the contest seemed quite interesting, and I enjoy problem books quite a bit. If John released a problem book, I would likely enjoy that as well.

Basically, I simply enjoy problem books and doing go problems. I have read a few books on theory - some of the popular "Fundamentals" book by Kageyama, for example.

Theory books are OK, but nothing beats go problems for me. I like go problems because I feel like I am thinking for myself more. When I am reading a book on go theory, I am just reading somebody else's ideas... This can be good, I guess, since they are good at go, but I'd rather spend time strengthening my own ideas by training with go problems.

So in short, I did not intend to portray anything negative toward John's works. I simply like go problems very much, and that was what Araban was offering for the contest at the time.

I have heard good things about the books mentioned here, so I am sure that they are very good.

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be immersed

i got 'the go consultants' when it was on special from slate & shell, which was an excellent value. i recently paid full price for 'final summit'. the large format and rich commentary filled with background information about the matches is without peer, and i will probably pick up the others (when my bank balance has recovered)