Woman Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade's book Chess Queens is the second edition of a book surveying the historical and current women chess players around the world whilst intermingling her personal story of how she got into chess and her climb to the WGM title and US Women's Championship, which she won twice.

The previous edition was titled Chess Bitch, Play Like a Girl which I haven't so I'm not sure if the tone changed but I think the theme is still present. Chess is a male-dominated sport which makes it harder for women who want to play. They have few role models, there are a lot of gender stereotypes propagated by the male players, there is a lot of sexism and sexual harassment. To be good women have to be more ruthless than their stereotype and yet playing as aggressive as a man gets you called a b*tch or other slurs.

Anyway, I like the historical biographies. Shahade goes country by country going over the top players and their stories. Fifteen years later she gets to add current top and upcoming women players as well mentioning current popular personalities like Anna Cramling and Alexandra Botez. Shahade mentions that in the first edition she was a bit more aggressive about feminism and chess and a decade later is more moderate, still a feminist and still working to bring more women into chess but without as big a chip on her shoulder.

I like the book. I knew few of the players and the stories are interesting. I like Shahade's personal story which she ties to the journeys of other players. Overall an enjoyable book.