August CalendarCAT

August has multiple birthstones -- peridot, sardonyx, and spinel. The poppy and the gladiolus are the month's flowers, and August babies are born under the signs of Leo and Virgo.



Each month brings days and weeks of celebration. Food days and months are common, and in August, you can celebrate catfish, mustard, panini, peaches, beer, or goat cheese.



Beyond food, August is the time for celebrations of Black business, forgiveness, elephants, strange music, Navajo code talkers, and honeybees.



And there are, of course, many authors born during August. Why, you could put together a calendar with authors born on every day of the month:



If you'd like to update the wiki with your August reading, you'll find it here.

>1 KeithChaffee: This is a wonderful prompt for August!
I am always scrambling a bit to find a good match, and this is a great help.

Not sure, but preliminarily I think I would like to read Symphony for City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson which is about Dmitri Shostakovich. His music can be eerie.

August 20th is Hungary's national day, so I'm planning to read Journey by Moonlight by the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb.

Another Hungarian writer I can recommend is Miklos Banffy whose Transylvanian Trilogy I very much enjoyed.

I'm planning to read Good Night Irene, the author has an August birthday.

>4 pamelad: "...Hungary's national day..."

Other countries celebrating Independence Day (or a national holiday under some other name) in August are, according to Wikipedia:

Benin, Switzerland, Niger, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Jamaica, Ivory Coast, Singapore, Ecuador, Chad, Central African Republic, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, India, North Korea, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Dominican Republic, Gabon, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Estonia, Ukraine, Uruguay, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

As August is American Adventure Month, I am planning on reading The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts.

I have a TBR that is a good fit, Juliet in August by Dianne Warren. She is a Canadian writer and apparently it is titled Cool Water there.

>1 KeithChaffee: Oh, The Wombles! I had that exact edition of the book as a child. Loved reading and watching the Wombles. And now of course I am singing - 'Underground, overground, wombling free!'

I will be reading The Grandest Bookshop in the World for Australia's Children's Book Week (21-27 August). It is set in 1893 at Cole's Book Arcade in Melbourne. Until it closed in 1929, it was the largest bookshop in the world with approx. two million volumes in stock. I wish I could have gone there in its heyday!

I will go with Merdeka Day, the national day of Malaysia, and finally read something by Tan Twan Eng.

I'm planning to read A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane who was born in August.

I read The Seaside Sisters by Pamela M. Kelley, since August is still a good beach month.

August has such days as "Friendship Day" and "Respect for Parents Day". Also "Lighthouse Day" and "Black Cat Appreciation Day" (my personal favourite; I also knew (he has since passed away) online the person who started that one).

Anyway, I think I've picked out something for all except the black cat day. Not sure if I'll get to them all or not, but I'll try!

>9 JayneCM: Being in the US, I've never seen the Wombles. I do know the song "Remember You're a Womble," though, and heaven only knows how I ever heard it. "Remember, member, member, what a Womba, Womba, Womble you are!"

Suggesting some books with characters called August: Augustus Carp, a British comic classic; Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March; P. G. Wodehouse's Gussie Fink-Nottle, who appears in Right Ho, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters, The Mating Season and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

August is also the "Women in Translation" month (so says a bookie I follow) so I might try to find a book in my TBR pile for this. I'm sure there are plenty.

I've completed my read of The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts about a woman who in 1954 crossed America on horseback from Maine to California. August is American Adventure Month and this was quite the adventure!

>17 dudes22: Thank you for the Women in Translation Month. So many possibilities. I've started Voices in the Evening by Natalia Ginzburg.

I read The Mayor of Castro Street, whose author, Randy Shilts, had an August birthday (8/8/1951).

A suitable book for the end of July and beginning of August was A Point of Law by John Maddox Roberts, which featured both Julius Caesar and Augustus (though obviously long before he became Augustus) offstage but manipulating events from behind the scenes.

>17 dudes22: Oh, that's a great idea!

ETA: Sheesh, almost forgot to mention that I finished Ich war den Hunnen untertan by Géza Gárdonyi, who was born on 3 August.

>17 dudes22: Thank you for mentioning this! I found some information about it here:

https://www.womenintranslation.org/witmonth

I have Life Begins On Friday by Ioana Pârvulescu lined up to read soon, which was translated from Romanian to English, so I hope to get to it this month.

Women in Translation month seems a good reason to take Alter schützt vor morden nicht from the shelf, a collection of short stories translated from Swedish. Read immediately in a row, they were a little repetitive and too predictable, so not entirely a success.

>1 KeithChaffee:, What a great opening post! Well done!

This was one of the few months I'd picked out in advance for the year--I stumbled on a bird-of-the-month list that listed the Kingfisher for August, and immediately thought about how I'd been meaning to try T. Kingfisher's work for a while. Well, I finally did, speeding through A House with Good Bones this week. For folks who love nature and creepy reads and humor, I highly recommend it! (Full review written)

The only downside is that I'm now wishing I had a yard full of vultures and roses, which isn't exactly realistic or likely...

>2 amberwitch: >25 whitewavedarling: Thank you for the kind words! I've done a couple of these monthly intro posts now, and I have great fun putting them together. The calendar of authors was an entertaining challenge, and I tried to make sure that the books and authors I chose covered a range of eras, genres, subjects, age ranges, and diverse representation.

>25 whitewavedarling: what a great tip!
I just got the first Saint of Steel books from the library. Very lucky as I haven’t lined anything up for August yet.

Thank you:)

I've finished Natalia Ginzburg's Voices in the Evening, which was translated into English from Italian, and have started Sagittarius.

I read Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, which was translated from Japanese into English.

I finished A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane - the author was born in August
An excellent book of the hardboiled, noir, genre. I was enjoying the novel, particularly the repartee between Kenzie and Gennaro, and leaning toward a positive opinion until I reached a particularly offensive scene that abruptly adjusted my thinking. I’ve enjoyed Lehane previously and despite the depraved scene I will probably try more with the hope that it was a sole occurrence.

I read What-The-Dickens by Gregory Maguire, a story of a rogue tooth fairy for National Tooth Fairy Day, celebrated on August 22nd.

I've read another book for Women in Tranlsation Month - Natalia Ginzburg's Sagittarius.

Finished Paladins Grace by T. Kingfisher for bird of the month - thank you >25 whitewavedarling: for the inspiration.

I have finished Toine by Guy de Maupassant, who was born on 5 August.

I read Good Night Irene and The Fire Next Time. Both authors were born in August.

I read Walk the Wire by David Baldacci

I also finished Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin whose 100th birthday was on 2 August.

I have also read Die rote Frau, where the main character is named August.

An unexpected August link for the book I've just finished, Ten For Dying by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer.

The plot revolves round the theft of a relic said to be part of the Virgin Mary's shroud and the Catholic and Orthodox churches commemorate her Assumption/Dormition on 15 August.

The next in the series, Murder in Megara takes place in "late August", 548 AD.

Respect for Parents Day, Friendship Day

Concrete Rose / Angie Thomas
4 stars

Maverick is 17-years old and waiting on a paternity test. When it shows he is the father, the mother walks out and leave the baby with Mav. The mother is not Mav’s girlfriend (that would be Lisa) and he wrestles with how to tell Lisa. Luckily, Mav’s mother helps out, more with advice than actually doing the parenting, and Mav turns out to be a good father. Mav’s cousin, Dre, encourages Mav to lead a clean life, but that’s hard to do when you are part of a gang and you sell drugs; not only that, what real job will pay what Mav needs to be paid to take care of himself and a baby and to also help his mom?

This was really good. A bit gritty, and you have to shake your head at the gang lifestyle and how that can seem so appealing. (At least I did, multiple times!) The book did talk about the “draw” of that lifestyle, as well (the money, the friends), but with regard to the friends, it seems to me the real friends are the ones like Dre, who realize that that life is ultimately not a good choice. It’s a tough world, but the humourous bits in the book are a nice relief.

COMPLETED Murder in Megara by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer - takes place in August - September 548 AD.

I have read several August related books so far this month:
Urgent Matters by Paula Rodriguez for women in translation
The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe for women in translation
The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo, last one for women in translation. This also works for Korean Liberation Day which is in August
Broken Summer by J. M. Lee, another one for Korean Liberation Day
Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer, August new release
Classified as Murder by Miranda James for International Cat Day
The Cowboy and His Elephant by Malcolm MacPherson for World Elephant Day
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher for the kingfisher

>25 whitewavedarling: Thanks so much for noting that the "bird of the month" for August is the kingfisher! I read T. Kingfisher's new one, A Sorceress Comes to Call, and absolutely loved it.

Starting Dog's Honest Truth by Neil Plakcy since the Dog Days are 25 July to 25 August.

I read Death in August by Marco Vichi, an Italian police procedural.

Oops - forgot to count/post this one for Lighthouse Day

Booked for Trouble / Eva Gates
4 stars

This is book two of a series. Librarian Lucy lives in a small town where the library is in a lighthouse and Lucy’s apartment is above the library. When Lucy’s mom (Suzanne) is visiting, Suzanne has a bad (very public) interaction with some people she knew back in high school. Later, Suzanne comes to Lucy’s book club, where both of those people also attend. Suzanne makes up with one of those people she’d earlier had a run-in with (Karen), but the next morning, Karen is found dead outside the library.

I really liked this. I love the library/lighthouse setting and I like many of the characters (though there were a number of unlikable characters, as well). Lucy does seem a bit innocent in her relationships, but even so, I like the two men who seem interested, though I might like one just a little more than the other.

I read Life Begins on Friday by Ioana Pârvulescu for Women in Translation Month. It was translated from the Romanian language.