It is hard to find joseki books that aren't dry and mechanical. The sheer number of variations on the subject make it difficult to make it interesting. Honda Kunihisa has managed to make the joseki interesting and lighthearted with his style and approach.

In this reprint of several articles from Go World, Honda Kunihisa, approaches each joseki problem as if there are three scholars presenting a different strategy and makes us think about which we would chose. He does this in a comical way as if the each of the scholars feels he has the only answer. Then he goes on to explain why one of the three is the best choice based on the whole board outlook.

Kunihisa reiterates the same warning in each discussion: "Since josekis work effectively in a certain direction, it is necessary to examine the positions along the adjacent sides and in the adjacent corners when choosing a joseki for a particular opening." I'm sure he repeated this warning to emphasize its importance. This is one of the things that I found so helpful in the two joseki books by Yi-lun Yang and Phil Straus. Honda Kunihisa gives only as much follow up as is necessary for even mid level players.

I found this book easy to read and wound up wanting even more problems. I expect that even low Dan level players will find this an interesting review as well as kyu level players.

This is a book about selecting the proper joseki to play in a certain situation. It contains 24 Debates; each Debate presents you with a full-board position in the opening, and gives you three different moves to chose your next move in a corner from. The goal is to teach you to take the entire board situation into account, rather than blindly playing whatever joseki you happen to know.

Despite the fact that the word `joseki' is in the title, this is a good book even if you know few or no joseki. If you don't know any joseki, you still have to play somewhere, and this book will help you figure out the right direction to play in; since it gives you moves to chose from, your choice is limited, so you can focus on the situation at hand. If you know a few joseki, you're probably hurting yourself by playing the ones you know even when they aren't appropriate, and this book should help you get out of that rut. If you know lots of joseki, you still have to chose between them, and this book will help teach you that.

A series with similar goals is the Whole Board Thinking in Joseki books by Yang and Straus. Look there for comparative comments.

When reading the book, you should keep a piece of paper to cover up the next page, since the answer to the Debate is sometimes on a facing page.