Play Like a Girl! by Jennifer Shahade
This hardback is published in the US by Mongoose Press, a publisher so modest they don’t even put heir name on the front cover or spine of their publications. However, the modesty ends there, since the authoress is one of the top chess publicists in the US, Jennifer Shahade. When not winning at poker, writing about Marcel Duchamp, using a hoolahoop whilst playing, giving simul or TV commentating, Shahade is a stimulating writer, as her book Chess Bitch, published some years back, clearly shows.
Now a newer effort is within my clutches. It is ‘Play Like Girl!’ and is a large format, coffee-table, well illustrated text containing combinations (322!) and photos, advice and biography/portraits, all gathered together under the heading of women’s chess. Tactics by 9Queens.
Feeling threatened? You should be! This is potent stuff!
jennifershahade.com
www.mongoosepress.com.
Menchik, Gaprindashvili, Polgar, Kosteniuk, Krush, Shahade herself, Fierro, Paridar, Parrilla, Marshall, Kostintseva Sisters, Koneru, Zatonsikh and Hou Yifan are profiled. I tried to find errors, I really did, but this is well written. (Surprisingly, nothing about Maia Chiburdanidze or Pia Cramling). The contents and page numbers don’t match. Throughout they are two pages awry caused by the insertion of a list of acknowledgements and a map. Hardly important!
Would make an excellent present for a beginner or returner to the game. Good fun and well printed. A successful attempt to present the game interestingly for girls entering their teens where traditionally their minds have moved-on to other matters.
