Chess Bitch: Women In The Ultimate Intellectual Sport
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In the game of chess, the strongest piece—the Queen—is often referred to as "bitch," and being female has been long considered a major disadvantage.
Chess Bitch, written by the 2004 U.S. Woman’s Chess Champion, is an eye-opening account of how today’s young female chess players are successfully knocking down the doors to this traditionally male game, infiltrating the male-owned sporting subculture of international chess, and giving the phrase "play like a girl" a whole new meaning.
Through interviews with and observation of the young globetrotting women chess players who challenge male domination, Chess Bitch shines a harsh light on the game’s gender bias. Shahade begins by profiling the lives of great women players from history, starting with Vera Menchik, who defeated male professionals with incredible frequency and became the first woman’s World Champion in 1927. She then investigates the women’s chess dynasties in Georgia and China. She interviews the famous Polgar sisters, who refused to play in separate women's tournaments. She details her own chess adventures—traveling to tournaments from Reykjavik to Istanbul. And Shahade introduces us to such lesser-known chess personalities as the flamboyant Zambian player Linda Nangwale and the transgendered Texan Angela Alston and the European female chess players who hop from one country to another, playing chess by day and partying long into the night. For those who think of chess as two people sitting quietly across a table, Shahade paints a colorful world that most chess fans never knew existed.
From the Publisher
"One woman’s fascinating true story of the life of a champion chess player. All women should take up the challenge and pick up a board! Chess anyone?" —Yoko Ono
"With crisp prose and a hypnotic rhythm, Shahade runs us through a vast range of colorful, affirming characters. Chess Bitch is a worldwide trot in search of a common humanity, a precise critique and a wild ride that transcends its own subject." —J.C. Hallman, author of The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World’s Oldest Game
"She speaks playfully and provocatively on chess as meditation, as art and as philosophy …how passion can be more interesting than genius, and the importance of sexy."—The Philadelphia Independent
Chess Bitch: Women In The Ultimate Intellectual Sport
Chess Bitch: Women In The Ultimate Intellectual Sport,Jennifer Shahade,Siles Press,189008509X,Biography,Chess - General,Games,Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords,Games/Puzzles,Sports - General,Women,Women chess players
Chess Bitch: Women In The Ultimate Intellectual Sport
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