I was thinking of an experiment. To try a book club in which a new topic is posted for each chapter of a designated GO related book. Is there a possibility of an experimental subforum for this purpose?
More edits:
I initially thought of the OGS groups like DDK proving ground for this, but the membership is not that numerous, and the group chats don’t provide the structure of chapter-related posts.
This is a main thread on books but if you have a different project you can start a new thread too.
IMHO the category “general chat” which are not specifically related to go should be the right place to start.
oh, i definitely mean go books. will edit my post
We have this general go discussion category which include a lot of different things.
Some discussion happened already on how we could reorganize it but no real consensus were then established.
Anyway you may simply start threads for each different book you want to debate, threads for the chapters linked to their book thread and a summary thread to link them together.
See what you can contribute and see the contribution of others willing to join.
If it’s going well then it will never be too late for an admin to create a subforum and such.
Myself I think it’s a great idea, i would just check what exist already (like BGA or L19 forum, or some blogs etc… ) so to offer more novelties and interest.
I think that’s a great idea! In the past, I’ve even thought about doing something like that for working through books like “Life and Death” or “Tesuji” by James Davies, or the “Attack and Defense” book by Ishida and Davies.
Which Go books did you have in mind?
I think that such a discussion would be a great fit within General Go Discussion to start. You can just tag the thread topics with something like “[XYZ Book Discussion]”.
Creating a new category is a possibility as well, but maybe a bit premature before the actual activity really takes off and calls for that. We can always move threads in the future.
I think it’d be great to do it here.
The way Groin said makes sense - do a post with a subject that identifies it like
Book Club: Winning At Go Chapter 1
etc
If it gets momentum, for sure it will get a subforum.
yebbelz - snap … typed faster than me 
I was thinking of some collective analysis/rewrite with the new perspective of AI of “in the beginning”, one of my favourite long time ago…
Anyway better meet a large audience of players interested in a same book (thinking of lessons in the fundamentals for ex.)
For new books, like from western authors, why not contact them to see their interest in this project? Of course you ll have to be careful with the limits of copyrights. But indirectly, that could be some promotion for their books. We could get more insight too, pages they chose to not publish or more. They could get feedback on their side, what player did understand, or what went confusing…
I had in particular already decided that I ought to study Attack and Defense, and I’m sure I’d benefit from Life and Death, and Tesuji also. So if we started up a discussion of one of those, that would help with my motivation to follow through.
I’ve been using the Smartgo One app for go books. I am reading book five of Janice Kim’s five book series. I thought that that series might be a good choice, but of course book one is not going to be interesting to everyone.
Would it be weird to start at book 3 or something? Or what’s another good selection? I’m 13 kyu-ish, so obviously I want something I’m ready for.
I’m down to give a trial run on any of those
I’ve been reading Kim’s five-book series also
I guess it doesn’t have to be pedagogical. The threads won’t really be ordered in any sense anyway.
Overall it sounds like a fun idea, I’d probably reread some of the books also alongside.
Possibly for organisational purposes it could be useful to have a main thread that links to the threads for each chapter.
I suppose it could be the case that some chapters not many people feel they have much to say on it and could be flexible like a chapter 1+2 thread.
So I’m spending some time going through vol 1 of the Kim series before deciding what to do about that series.
Another book on SmartGo One that might truly have something for everybody is this new book:
I’m still concerned about the balance between generating interest in the book versus revealing too much of it here in the forum. I wonder if John Power visits OGS on occasion. ?
I think that book clubs and discussion groups generally produce a positive impact towards promoting a book and its sale, so most publishers and authors would view such activity as favorable (unless maybe everything being said winds up being strongly negative). Further, activities like review, criticism, and education are robustly protected under fair use principles of copyright laws, so there is probably not much to worry about from that angle either.
In general, I feel that the Kim “Learn to Play Go” series is a bit slow-paced and aimed at beginners with more basic content (note: this is based on having read only the first three volumes). I think the first book, while helpful for beginners getting an initial introduction to the game, won’t offer much to discuss among even slightly more experienced players (even still in the TPK range), such as those that might be more active on the forums. Volumes 2 and 3 present slightly more advanced content, but the overall series does not have that much content for being spread over several books. A downside of those books is having to purchase several volumes for the amount of content that might be presented in a single beginner book.
The Essential Go Proverbs book is quite expensive, so, while it seems interesting, I don’t know if it is so accessible to a broader audience. The digital version is considerable cheaper, but I guess maybe that requires using a specific platform that not everyone might want to use. Personally, I would sit out for that book, mainly due to cost.
I like the idea of Essential Go Proverbs because the examples for each topic range from elementary to advanced. It’s a huge tome, so the price of the digital version doesn’t seem so outrageous to me. But of course, MMV.
Also regarding the Kim book series, I found them to be more valuable in books 4 and 5.
The book Essential Go Proverbs already has a couple of threads, like this one: New book: Essential GO Proverbs - First impressions
I’ve read 80% of it. Compared to the amount of material it contains, it’s really not that expensive.
Also the free sample in the app has enough material to know if you want to purchase the whole book.
