Reading with Style discussion

Please ask all questions about the Summer 2026 season here.

This spreadsheet combines Non-Western, Young, and Aged, for authors currently in the database. To search, press CTRL+F.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Here are some authors I'd like approved for the "Young" style:
Dahlia de la Cerda Born 1985
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlia_...
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Born 1988
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyinkan...
Yáng Shuāng-zǐ born 1984
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Sh...
R.F. KuangBorn 1996 -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._F._K...
Yah-Yah Scholfield Born 1999
Google Search:
"Overview
Yah Yah Scholfield is a short story writer and novelist based in Atlanta. Google Books
Born
1999 (age 27 years)"

Karen Michele wrote: "Here are some authors I'd like approved for the "Young" style:
Dahlia de la Cerda Born 1985
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlia_...
Oyinkan Braithwaite
..."

All approved!

I don't see M.G. Vassanji on the spreadsheets. He is aged, born in 1950.

That's fine - his year of birth is on his Goodreads profile. In that case we don't need them to be pre-approved.

About short story collections - if most but not all of the authors fit a category, would they count? For example, The Far Reaches collection is mostly female authors with I think one male, maybe two. Same for Black Stars - mostly written by black women.

For books with more than one author, we always go by the first author listed on the book's Goodreads page - for Aged and Young as well as Female.

Rosemary wrote: "For books with more than one author, we always go by the first author listed on the book's Goodreads page - for Aged and Young as well as Female."

About the same subject - how are we to list short stories that are part of a collection but not listed as part of one 'book' on Goodreads? For Black Stars, The Visit, The Black Pages, Clap Back, 2043... a Merman I Should Turn to Be, These Alien Skies, and We Travel the Spaceways are all listed as separate titles (Kindle Exclusives) under a series but they're short stories and novellas. The same goes for the Far Reaches series.

RwS generally requires a book to be 100 pages, except that "two books of poetry, written by the same author, can be read in order to meet the page requirement. This is the only exception to the page minimum" (from the FAQ). Occasionally we have a task allowing shorter books, as with the graphic novels task last season, but not this season.

So short story collections have to published together, as one book of at least 100 pages, otherwise they don't work for RwS this season.

As you've linked to the Black Stars series, I can see there is an omnibus edition Black Stars: A Galaxy of New Worlds containing all six. If you read all six stories, you can claim that omnibus edition as one book (168 pages in the Kindle edition, as there is no print edition, with author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). I don't know if the same is true of the Far Reaches series without a link.

You wouldn't be able to claim Series style points for this book, because that requires three books of 100 pages or more in the series.

I hope that helps, but do ask again if it's not clear!

Will this work to qualify Kristin Valdez Quade for "Young"? She was an honoree for the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" prize in 2014, so would be less than 50 years old now. I couldn't find her birthdate published anywhere.
https://www.nationalbook.org/people/k...

She was born in 1980 according to viaf.org:

https://viaf.org/en/viaf/311463099

Denise wrote: "She was born in 1980 according to viaf.org:

https://viaf.org/en/viaf/311463099"

That works. Please mention this when you claim the book.

Denise wrote: "She was born in 1980 according to viaf.org:

https://viaf.org/en/viaf/311463099"

Thanks! As a retired librarian, I'm embarrassed not to have known about this source!

Karen Michele wrote: "Denise wrote: "She was born in 1980 according to viaf.org:

https://viaf.org/en/viaf/311463099"

Thanks! As a retired librarian, I'm embarrassed not to have known about this source!"

You’re welcome! It has rescued a lot of points for me over the years.

Can we read in any order?

Jayme(theghostreader) wrote: "Can we read in any order?"

Yes!

Can you approve for young Er is niks by Elisabeth Lucie Baeten. She was born in 1990 https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabe...