With all this talk abour "Origami for the Connoisseur", I suppose people do realise that this book is merely the English translation of a Japanese book, which carries the title, "Top Origami" in addition to its Japanese title. Also, the names of the models and their creators are given in English, but otherwise the book is wholly in Japanese.

The Japanese original of the book was published by Sanrio in 1985, with the ISBN: 4 - 387 - 85096 - 5. The book has a hard cover and there are eight pages of coloured photographs of completed models. The page size is slightly larger than in the English version, but otherwise "Top Origami" is the same in content as "Origami for the Connoisseur", which was published in English two years later as a paperback..

"Top Origami " was the second of a series of books in the same format, which were published under the oversight of Kunihiko Kasahara. The others were "Viva Origami", which introduced the work of Jun Maekawa; "Origami, La Era Nueva", which also featured the work of Jun Maekawa, and also included black belt pieces in the technical folding style by other Japanese folders and also by some folders from other countries; and "Origami, El Mundo Nuevo", which has somewhat less complicated, but still interesting models, also by folders from all over the world.

I understand that, much to the concern of Kunihiko Kasahara, there were copyright problems with "La Era Nueva" and with "El Mundo Nuevo", as a result of which they had only imited runs. Consequently, they are not so well known as the first two books in the series. If I am right in this, it is a great pity, because all four books contain many splendid and challenging models. All, in fact, are Origami for the Connoisseur.

David Lister