From: Stephen Lamb <SJL <at> ALS <dot> CO <dot> UK>
Date: 1 feb 2001
Subject: Tony Hosking

Just a quick note to say that Tony Hosking, the author of the
books "Habu's Words", "The Art of Shogi" etc., can now be
contacted by e-mail. His address is shogifoundation <at> talk21 <dot> com

Also, Tony wanted me to post answers to a couple of questions
posed by Mr. Tisdall in a recent post regarding the book Habu's
Words:

> One question - discussing some games he seems to know the
> approximate strength of the players, making clear reference to
> this, in others he seems unsure, saying he guesses they are
> dan players - how much information did Habu have about the
> games when he selected them for the book?

Tony says that Habu did indeed know the strength of all of the
players beforehand. However, in the commentary of some of the
kyu-player games Habu stated that if he had not known the grades
of the players then he would have guessed they were of dan-
level strength (meaning this as a complement to the players).

> Is there any chance at all that some books in Japanese might
> ever be translated, or is this such a huge project for such a
> small audience that it is in practice impossible?

I spoke to Tony about this and unfortunately he didn't express
much of an interest, in the main because his command of the
Japanese language is not so good. However, he did mention that
it took him about a year just to recoup the costs for his book
"The Art of Shogi" - a fact that future translators may want to
bear in mind.

Kindest regards,
--Steve Lamb.