This pocket sized book of life and death problems is by Yilun Yang, Chinese professional 7dan and one of the best known go teaches in the west. This collection has an unusual and delightful characteristic: each problem is based on the shape of a chinese character. The character and its translation are given as the title of each puzzle, so that readers can actually learn 50 chinese characters by working through this book. Although these patterns will never occur in actual games, the tactics used to deal with them are the same as in all fighting. This collection is particularly rich in situations that involve creating a ko, providing practice in a tactic that most players are relatively weak at.

Mr. yang provides solutions, variations, and failure diagrams for each problem, and he estimates the range of difficulty as being from 10kyu to 4dan. The book makes a useful study aid to carry along anywhere.