Life In 19x19

"All About Life and Death" is currently out of print, but I'm trying to pick up a copy (well, it's two volumes so I guess "copies" is more appropriate). I like the idea of a comprehensive life and death dictionary I can thumb through, and I hear great things about it.

I see copies on ebay, but it's $60 for volume 1 and $80 for volume 2, which seems like highway robbery So if anyone has a copy in reasonable condition they wouldn't mind parting with at a more reasonable price let me know.

Good luck. $60 and $80 sound rather low to me, if "unreasonable". Out of print Go books tend to fall into a strange category populated by the overlap of obsessive/compulsive collectors and knowledge freaks (no offense intended, I proudly count myself among their number).
Not to mention older Go books in English were printed in very low numbers to begin with.

I've seen it much more expensive than that. My copies are in mint condition, and I'd probably sell them for a very good price...

If you want an old English OOP book, you'll probably have to pay a high premium unless you happen upon some uninformed seller who just puts up a great deal on something like Amazon marketplace.

"All About Life and Death" just happens to be a set of books which everyone wants but no one is able to get the rights to reprint due to copyright controversies. Therefore, they will almost always command a high price on the used book market when available.

If you want something cheaper, try buying an Asian edition.

The equivalent Chinese edition for BOTH volumes of "All About Life and Death" is 围棋死活辞典（上卷）ISBN 9787538160864 which is a new edition released in 2009. So it should be quite easy to find at places like Amazon.cn or Dangdang. The retail price at RMB38 is comparatively very reasonable if you don't mind reading an Asian language edition.

If you need info on how to order Chinese go books, I have a page on my blog on Collecting Chinese Go Books.

Otherwise you will have a long wait for reasonable priced English volumes or you'll have to pay up for the privilege from knowledgeable sellers.

Well I don't mind paying upwards of $60 for the pair. But I guess it sounds like I'm SOL at that price range. Foreign language books might be an option but I'm not comfortable at all with asian languages so there would be a pretty steep learning curve in addition to the already steep learning curve of L&D \

Helel wrote:If you want physical copies to thumb through and you think $140 is to much you really must ask yourself if you're a law abiding citizen. If not I assume you can steal Kirk's copies. Since they're still in mint condition he probably won't miss them very much. (Please don't torch the place to hide the crime.)

[Modererator Edit]
Please do not suggest piracy.
-- Fwiffo
[/Moderator Edit]

Best wishes

This is either an incredibly hilarious misunderstanding or Fwiffo has a very dry wit

I removed some text that violated forum rules.

fwiffo wrote:I removed some text that violated forum rules.

Darn, I had just assumed that both of you were hilarious.

If the text tchan linked is correct then suggesting to buy the english version of the book is suggesting piracy as well

I got the Chinese edition from Yutopian Enterprises. Then I 'had' to get the English version. I'm glad I did since there's a lot of useful discussion in there. IMHO I'd save up and wait until copies came up that weren't very expensive (unless you read Chinese). $60 and $80 doesn't seem bad and it really does seem to be the best discussion of L&D in English language literature (to me), so sort of justifiable.

tchan001 wrote:"All About Life and Death" just happens to be a set of books which everyone wants but no one is able to get the rights to reprint due to copyright controversies. Therefore, they will almost always command a high price on the used book market when available.

Thank you for posting this link. I'd heard that there were possibly copyright issue's surrounding these books but that's all.

Li Kao wrote:If the text tchan linked is correct then suggesting to buy the english version of the book is suggesting piracy as well

Personally (with the information now available) I will avoid these books. But obviously many people purchased these volumes in good faith.

Though I have not read any of them (except for Iwamoto's "Go for Beginners") its sad to see the publisher of so many treasured English language go books hurt in this way.