Cho Chikun's All About Life and Death, back in print?!!

[Suspiria]

Hey look what I found on Amazon today. I've been wanting to get these books for a while but they're always so damn expensive. YAY!

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... cho+chikun

[Preben]

Thanks for pointing this out. I've wanted All About Life and Death for some time now.
I just noticed there was a batch of some other Ishi Press books put back into print a couple months ago too.
Thinking about getting Enclosure Josekis as well.

[CnP]

This is a really good set to get - I've already got both volumes. I'm surprised the legal situation with it got sorted - perhaps it's related to the fact that I noticed from Amazon's 'look inside' that it appears to be re-issued by Sam Sloan (like he did with "Modern Joseki and Fuseki vols 1&2" and "The middle Game of Go") - nothing that detracts from their usefulness though.

[seigenblues]

Not to be a party pooper, but i'm really disappointed in this: It's not actually a reprinting -- it's pretty clearly a scanned copy, the pictures of which were cleaned up and printed. The quality is not great: my guess is that the originals are gone and no one knows how to re-typeset the thing at the publishing company. This is also true of their other recent reprints: I got "Enclosure Josekis, Attacking and Defending the Corner" and the diagrams are so wobbly it's hard to read. The cover clearly shows jpg artifacts. Ah well, this is what i get for looking closely

But it's a lot better than not having it in print at all!

[CnP]

Sam's email address is in those other re-prints.

[Preben]

Oh. That is disappointing. Feels like someone grabbed a PDF off the internet and sent it to the printer.

I think I'll pass on these.

[Suspiria]

Not to be a party pooper, but i'm really disappointed in this: It's not actually a reprinting -- it's pretty clearly a scanned copy, the pictures of which were cleaned up and printed. The quality is not great: my guess is that the originals are gone and no one knows how to re-typeset the thing at the publishing company. This is also true of their other recent reprints: I got "Enclosure Josekis, Attacking and Defending the Corner" and the diagrams are so wobbly it's hard to read. The cover clearly shows jpg artifacts. Ah well, this is what i get for looking closely

But it's a lot better than not having it in print at all!

Hmm, looks like you might be right. Though since I only want them to study they'll suit me just fine. Thanks for the heads up though.

[seigenblues]

CnP: Sam who? I'll e-mail him about re-typesetting them.

[xed_over]

CnP: Sam who? I'll e-mail him about re-typesetting them.

you'd better Google him first... he has some strange history.

[CnP]

CnP: Sam who? I'll e-mail him about re-typesetting them.

Like xed_over said he's an interesting character. As far as I know he was one of the guys involved in the original Ishi Press publishers.

Marcel: I have All about life and Death English version, but I also have a Chinese copy of the series (not the 2014 edition) - I ordered that from Yutopian. Personally I found the discussion in the English copy really useful, which I couldn't get from the Chinese text.

[happysocks]

What level are these books aimed at?

[Bill Spight]

The last three actually appear in a chapter that talks about shapes on the side that can become one eye, something I haven't seen in English literature so far.

What about Howard Landman's Eyespace values in go( http://library.msri.org/books/Book29/files/landman.pdf )?

[RobertJasiek]

The books are for 5k to 3d. As problem books, their selection is very useful. Like all (pure) problem books, they hardly teach how to read but presume that the reader already knows it or learns / improves on it magically while solving the problems. I have recommended the original books, but having to read a scancopy is, uh, suboptimal. Despite Sam Sloan's reputation, I think he has purchased the rights to a few books (Sakata Eio's Ishi press books) but I cannot know about the legal situation of All About L+D. IMO, any publisher should rather re-edit the books rather than issue a scancopy, but, eh, if there are buyers, who cares. The text is occasionally helpful for the 5k reader, but 1k+ can as well buy a properly printed Asian edition.

[Bill Spight]

The last three actually appear in a chapter that talks about shapes on the side that can become one eye, something I haven't seen in English literature so far.

What about Howard Landman's Eyespace values in go( http://library.msri.org/books/Book29/files/landman.pdf )?

Interesting, but TM;DR. (too mathematical; didn't read). I'll try though.

What I had in mind were the examples on pp. 237 - 240. Although Landman does not give sequences of play for them.