Disclaimer 1: The following article contains several affiliate links to Amazon.com, meaning that if you go to Amazon and buy the recommended product (or some other product in an allotted period of time), the author of these lines will get a commission % from the purchase
Disclaimer 2: The following article is an excerpt from my article titled Best Chess Books 2022 in which I reviewed 20 chess books
Jennifer Shahade: Chess Queens: The True Story of a Chess Champion and the Greatest Female Players of All Time
WGM Jennifer Shahade, the current Women’s Program Director of the US Chess Federation is probably one of the biggest ambassadors of our game and advocates for female inclusivity and dignity within the chess world. 1 Some older readers might remember that her very first book titled Chess Bitch: Women In The Ultimate Intellectual Sport, devoted to great female chess players of the past (and present) was featured and reviewed in my previous post on the list of best chess books I read back in 2020.
Chess Queens is WGM Shahade’s latest publication and is a follow-up to the Chess Bitch devoted to the very same topic. In the book, WGM Shahade talks in great detail about great female chess players of the past (and present) – from the early trailblazers such as Vera Menchik and Sonja Graf, via great Soviet and Georgian players of the 1950s-1980s period, to more modern heroines such as the Polgar sisters or great female Chinese players of the last 30 years. In selected chapters, she also talks about her own experience as a female in the chess world, the challenges she had to endure, and the sexism she had to face.
Just like Chess Bitch, the content of this book is excellent. In a world where too little is written from the female perspective and about female chess players, books such as this one are not only fresh and interesting but also very necessary. Reading about the fates of these great chess players, hearing about the challenges and difficulties they had to endure, and realizing female chess players have to think about things most male players never even consider will hopefully more male players aware of all these issues and more sympathetic toward the „female issue” in chess. 2
However, due to the big overlap in topics between Chess Queens and Chess Bitch, a lot of people were wondering – what are the differences between the two books? Is Chess Queens a completely new work completely independent of Chess Bitch, or more of an update and revision of the existing book?
This question was discussed in some detail before Chess Queens was released and the general messaging was that this book is an updated and revised, 2022 edition of Chess Bitch. This was confirmed by Jen herself in episode 269 of the Perpetual Chess, where she described in great detail how and why Chess Queens happened to be. The similarity with the previous book is clearly emphasized in the Introductory chapter:
but it is also very obvious if one takes a look at the chapter distribution of both books:
(The table of contents of Chess Bitch can be seen on the left, while the table of contents of Chess Queens can be seen on the right)
I felt this fact could have been emphasized more clearly in marketing texts on the websites of different publishers. For example, the product description on Amazon.com or on Ichess.net don’t mention Chess Bitch at all, while a book review on Chessbase also doesn’t make it very clear given that it states that:
„After “Chess Bitch” she has now published another book on women’s chess, “Chess Queens”.”
The only place where I have seen Chess Bitch clearly mentioned and referenced is on the New In Chess website, where it is stated that:
„Jennifer’s previous books include Chess Bitch (now updated and reissued as Chess Queens)”
It is true that this info is presented in the section dedicated to the author and not the book itself, but at least it is present – which is what can’t be said about the author information on Amazon:
As for the content – I haven’t really done a detailed page-by-page analysis to compare the differences. I recognized places where the book was updated, e.g. sections of the book mentioning new and relevant studies from more recent years or the chapter „Chinese Style” that does talk about Hou Yifan – the 2nd best female player ever who wasn’t even around back in 2005 when Chess Bitch was first published.
But I also recognized many parts/paragraphs that are absolutely identical to paragraphs/parts also present in Chess Bitch. Overall, while I was reading Chess Queens I had a very strong feeling of deja vu and didn’t really have a feeling I am reading a fundamentally different book.
(The opening chapter from the Chess Bitch compared to the opening chapter from the Chess Queens)
Therefore, if you have read Chess Bitch in the past, I wouldn’t recommend you to also dive deep into Chess Queens, as I don’t feel the fundamental difference between the books is sufficient to justify spending the money anew.
But if you haven’t read any of the two, I can only wholeheartedly recommend Chess Queens, because all the points I made in my review of Chess Bitch about the value, relevance, and importance of the book still stand.