August RandomCAT - Dog Days of Summer

The phrase dog days refers to the sultry days of summer. In the Northern Hemisphere, the dog days of summer are most commonly experienced in the months of July and August, which typically observe the hottest summer temperatures.

The Romans referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius (the "Dog Star") because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog); this linkage first appeared in the Greek poem Phaenomena by Aratus (~310-260 BC) while Sirius's association with summer heat is found in an earlier Greek poem, Works and Days by Hesiod in ~700 BC. Sirius is also the brightest star in the night sky.

The Dog Days originally were the time of the year when Sirius rose just before or at the same time as the sun. Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies." according to Brady’s Clavis Calendaria, 1813.

Sirius was classically depicted as Orion's dog. The Ancient Greeks thought that Sirius's emanations could affect dogs adversely, making them behave abnormally during the "dog days," the hottest days of the summer. The Romans knew these days as dies caniculares, and the star Sirius was called Canicula, "little dog." The excessive panting of dogs in hot weather was thought to place them at risk of desiccation and disease. In extreme cases, a foaming dog might have rabies, which could infect and kill humans whom they had bitten. Homer, in the Iliad, describes the approach of Achilles toward Troy in these words:

Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
On summer nights, star of stars,
Orion's Dog they call it, brightest
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat
And fevers to suffering humanity.

In Ancient Rome, the Dog Days ran from July 24 through August 24, or, alternatively, from July 23 through August 23. In many European cultures (German, French, Italian) this period is still said to be the time of the Dog Days.

So my challenge to you for August is to read a book with the word Dog, or Day, or Summer in the title as we say goodbye to summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

The above description is excerpted from Wikipedia.

Don't forget to add your entries to the wiki: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2015_RandomCAT#August_-_Theme:_Dog_Da...

This is a lovely theme! Like you (and Wikipedia) said, "Hundstage" is still a common phrase in Germany. There are at least two books with the title that sound promising.

Lovely theme, once again! Let's hope the weather joins us, I would love to have some weeks of constant summer weather...

I have two options, both German: Hundstage by Walter Kempowski or Brombeersommer by Dörthe Binkert.

I think I will finally get around to reading Black Dog.

Love it! This is the perfect time to read Demon Summer and catch up on the Max Tudor books. Really hope we say goodbye to summer early this year. Hate, hate, hate the heat.

Looks like I have plenty in my TBR pile to pick from. Maybe, except for the SFFF Cat, I'll devote August to books for the Random. Clean up my TBR, stay away from library books, and reduce the difference between books bought/books read in my TBR.

Great theme, I am going to finally get around to The Dog Stars by Peter Heller and This One Summer a graphic novel by Mariko Tamaki.

I'm glad you all are enjoying the challenge. Happy reading!

I'll be doing a reread of Alan Alda's memoir: Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned. Trying to decide whether to reread my print copy or listen to the (abridged) audio version read by Alan himself.

>9 rabbitprincess: That's actually on my TBR pile. I may join you if time permits.

Ha! I was thinking about an animal theme (one possibility) for September, but I think I'll go with a different option instead! (I also had travel in mind, but there was a variation on that done earlier in the year.) I do have another option that I'll go with instead - just need to figure out details!

Anyway, for this one, I'm also likely to focus on "dog" in the title. I have a few options:
- To Say Nothing of the Dog / Connie Willis (I'd like to get to this, but it's a long one, so I might not - still! It's been an option a few times this year.
- The Dog Who Rescues Cats / Philip Gonzalez
- *Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats and Everyday Heroes... / Elizabeth Hess
- *Memoirs of a Fighting Dog / Keisha Keenleyside

*The more likely ones. I have copies of both.

Oh, I like this challenge. When I was growing up here in the South dog days referred to the time in summer when dogs stayed under the porch all day where it was cooler.

I started a nonfiction book What The Dog Knows a month or so ago and although I liked the part I read I put it aside for some reason. I'll probably go back to that.

This looks like fun. What I really like is the necessity of browsing through my TBR to see what I have that might fit.

Nothing that's already on my August list looks like it will fit. I'll either go with an audiobook or maybe I'll try to squeeze in The Dogs of Rome since I don't have any other ebooks on my August list.

My only possibility is The Golden Days by Cao Xueqin

Finished A Demon Summer by G.M. Malliet - the title is completely appropriate as we head into 105 degree days for the next week. Yuck!

I finished The curious incident of the dog in the night-time and gave it four stars. It was a very interesting story written in the voice of a 15 year old autistic boy. The book gives you some insight into the mind of an autistic child and explains why they react to certain stimuli. A fascinating read.

I've finished two books for this challenge. The Dogs of Rome is the first book in a police procedural series set in Rome. A Cold Day in Paradise is the first book in a series about a private investigator in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Both books were OK, but I don't think I'll be continuing either series.

I decided to give up on my attempt to read Quaker Summer for RandomCAT. It is definitely Christian fiction, which I normally do not read. Through 70 pages of the book the protagonist is still living a wealthy life style although she is uncomfortable since something is missing in her life.

I have removed the title from the wiki.

Dog Days are here, with up to 40°C in some areas of Germany. I read Brombeersommer (German only) which is a quiet book about three friends in post-WWII Germany in the early 50s.

I have started reading Dennis Lehane's The Given Day. 50 pages in and loving it so far, but at 700 pages, it may take me a little while to finish it.

>20 Chrischi_HH: I had to google Celsius to Fahrenheit for the conversion. 104 is hot!

>21 lkernagh: Good luck with the remaining 650 pages and congrats for starting that big a book!

>22 LoisB: - It counts for one of my category reads and as a ROOT read, so I am getting a "two for the price of one" read out of it. ;-)

I finished Hundstage (that's the dog days of summer), a historical mystery featuring German author Theodor Fontane as an amateur sleuth in August 1875. Decent, but not outstanding.

>24 MissWatson: Thanks for the translation! Too bad the book wasn't better.

I half-read Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller

I'm almost done with my first dog book: The Heart of a Dog by Albert Payson Terhune. It's a good collection of short stories, although the first one broke my heart.

I just finished The Summer of Dead Toys by Antonio Hill, a mystery set in Barcelona. Not a very summery felling book, but it was good.

I'm glad some of you are making progress. Hopefully, I'll get a second "dog" book in before the end of the month.

I'm half-way through The Boy Who Spoke Dog by Clay Morgan.
It's a J adventure novel. I'm liking it!

I have a number of dog books on the TBR shelves. Hope to read more of them this month.

This may be a good month for me to finally push myself into finishing Independence Day by Richard Ford, but I'm going to try for another one also--I've been off LT for most of the summer, working so much, and now I'm ready to make up for lost time in reading and being involved over here!

>31 whitewavedarling: I remember reading Independence Day many years ago. It was OK, but I was not impressed. At the time, I did not realize it was part of a trilogy, and I had not read the first book, so that may have been part of my problem.

I was going to read Viking Dog as my second "dog" book, but I can't find it on my shelves...argh.

I finished my read of The Given Day late, late last night. Overall, a solid historical fiction circa 1918-1919 Boston, Massachusetts family epic story (book one is a three book series, just in case anyone is wondering) filled with a lot of the big picture historical items but it wasn't the page-turning read I had been hoping it would be.

>34 lkernagh: I just dodged a Book Bullet!

After a bit of a rocky start, I really loved The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.

Ugh, posted in the wrong topic.

Memoirs of a Fighting Dog / Keesha Keenleyside
4.5 stars

As the title says, this is a fictional memoir of a dog who was forced to fight for his life over and over and over again in the brutal world of dog fighting.

It was a very difficult book to read, but luckily, we know from the very start that the dog (now named Sombre) has survived and been rescued. It shows the horrible world of dog fighting where dogs are trained to kill each other for human sport/entertainment/money. I was in tears throughout a good portion of the book. It is violent and a horrible horrible life for those poor dogs. The author says the money raised from the book will support animal charities. It was self-published and my one complaint was that it could have used a good editor: there were grammar, spelling and punctuation errors, which did sometimes jolt me out of the story. The story itself, though: powerful and heartbreaking.

I've found a book that fits and am now reading Labor Day by Joyce Maynard.

>38 LibraryCin: I got chills just reading your comments. I'm not sure I could tackle the book.

>39 RidgewayGirl: How timely! Labor Day in the US is celebrated on the first Monday of September.

>40 LoisB: It's very difficult to read and quite violent at times. It's definitely not for everyone. As a comparison, if you avoid reading or looking at pictures on facebook of animals who have been abused or hurt, you definitely wouldn't be able to get through it. I often think people should know about these things - if nothing else, then to help fight it. But, I know it's very very hard to stomach. (I was reading it mostly on public transit, and crying...)

>42 LibraryCin: I had a similar experience with reading about about Michael Vick's dogs, The Lost Dogs. It did make me cry, but most of the dogs were saved and found homes. I also learned a lot about dog fighting.

Here's my review:

I recall the news stories about NFL star Michael Vick's criminal charges leading to his prison term, but do not recall anything about the dogs involved in the dog-fighting case. This book is the story about where the dogs came from, their "rehabilitation", and where they are now. It is mainly a neutral work, but condemnation for the horrific cruelty these dogs experienced can't help but come through the printed page.

The author writes in a realistic manner, which might be hard for the more tender-hearted to handle. However, the descriptions of the dogs' living (and in some cases, dying) conditions are not gratuitously added, but serve a purpose: to show what the dogs survived, and why they deserved a chance at a normal life.

I especially loved the later chapters, where the foster families and rehabilitation personnel's efforts were documented. Expect to shed tears of sorrow and joy as you read. Recommended.

>38 LibraryCin: & >43 fuzzi: A few years ago I read DogTown: Tales of Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Redemption, about the Vick dogs. It fortunately concentrated on the dogs after they were removed from Vick's care. It had quite a bit about the condition of these dogs (and others) who arrived at the dog refuge, and about their rehabilitation, which was interesting to me because until recently we had a rescue dog who had been badly abused. It's quite a job to bring them to a point where they feel secure and can start to behave like normal dogs, but very worthwhile. Emmie died two months ago and we still miss her quite a bit - and more so than the other dogs we've loved. There's something about the resilience and willingness to trust again that makes abused dogs special.

>44 RidgewayGirl: thank you for taking care of Emmie. :') =happy tear

>43 fuzzi: Thank you! I think I have that on my tbr already, but I'll double check on that!

>44 RidgewayGirl: I don't think I knew of that one. I'll check it out and likely it will be added to the tbr, as well. And I'm sure Emmie loved her life with you. Good for you for rescuing and rehabilitating her. I'm so sorry that you've lost her, though. How old was she and how long was she with you?

My RandomCAT read this month was Three Days in Seattle by Debra Burroughs. Not impressed.

Finished Independence Day finally. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I do feel accomplished to have finished it -- this was the single book that I was assigned while I was getting my Masters, but which I never finished. It sort of became a point of pride to eventually go back and read, so I'm glad to have done it... even if a decade later!

>47 countrylife: >48 whitewavedarling: Good going! I get a huge sense of accomplishment when I finish something that wasn't impressive. I used to finish everything whether I liked it or not. Now, I'm too often willing to file it under DNF.

fuzzi and LibraryCin, Emmie gave back so much to us all. She only lived to nine, which was too young to die. I had hoped her bad beginning would entitle her to a long, comfortable life. But she loved us, loved being a part of a family and enjoyed being with us, whether on a hike or hanging out on the sofa. It did take three years to get her to where she was secure, but it was a worthwhile endeavor. We're going to wait a year (until we're back in the US) to get another dog, but I suspect the next dog will also be somewhat unadoptable.

And I have just slipped in under the wire this month. I read Labor Day by Joyce Maynard. It was not without problems.

>50 RidgewayGirl: On Facebook I follow a lady who does Rottweiler rescues. Sometimes when she gets the abandoned/abused dogs, the vet finds incurable cancer or other issues that are not treatable. So she gives the dogs love for a day, a week, a month, whatever time they have left.

It's the love you offer, not the length of life that matters, imo. Again, thank you for loving Emmie.

> 50 Good for you for taking the "unadoptable" ones! I volunteer with cats. They don't take owner surrenders, just strays, so some a very shy and/or feral. I am one of the "socializers", working with them to help get them adoptable. I love the "shy" cats and it's so rewarding when they finally turn around! Sometimes, also taking years.

I finished The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri for this challenge. It's the second in the Inspector Montalbano series and was very enjoyable.

I managed to read three books for this challenge, and two of them were ROOTs (on my shelves for over a year), so I'm happy!

The Heart of a Dog by Albert Payson Terhune
A Prince Among Dogs by Callie Smith Grant
Viking Dog (yes, I found it!) by Glenn Balch

>54 fuzzi: Excellent! I'm glad it was a productive challenge for you.

>53 mathgirl40: I'm not familiar with the series - maybe a BookBullet here!

>55 LoisB: it was, except I liked both my ROOT books enough to keep them for a reread...

I finally finished my selection for this challenge: the audio edition of Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, by Alan Alda. I went with the audio version, which is abridged but is at least read by Alan himself. What a treat! And at one point during my listening I had to go take a break and watch a few episodes of M*A*S*H. So a very good choice. Thanks for the inspiration, @LoisB!

>58 rabbitprincess: you are welcome. I enjoyed Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, too.