Book Snails Book Group discussion

June heralds summer and has the honour of hosting the longest days of the year. It is also unique in that no other month will start on the same day of the week as it in any calendar year. Further mathematical weirdness means it will always finish on the same day of the week that March finishes.
June is also the month of Father's Day. Over 100 nations celebrate Father's Day in June. Though this celebration has medieval ties, it was truly popularised in the early 20th century by American Sonora Smart Dodd, who was raised, along with her five brothers, by her single dad father.


For June:
🐌Read a book that opens with the end or close to the end.
🐌Read a book with a mathematical equation or symbols on the cover
🐌Read a book about a father



July is long lazy hot days, ice cream and wishing for the perfect holiday (vacation). It's the warmest month of the year for most people in the world and the coldest for those in the southern hemisphere. It is also the start of the dog days" of summer. "Dogs days" is a term that is associated with the hottest most uncomfortable days of summer. It comes from the Latin "dies caniculares," which translates literally as "the puppy days." Dog days itself doesn't have a meaning as such, but is a literal translation from the Latin. A literal translation is linguistically known as a calque. The English term "dog days" is a calque of the Latin "dies caniculares," which is a calque of the Greek "κυνάδες ἡμέραι" or "α Canis Majoris," the dog star. So we use "dog days" to mean the hottest sultriest of days of the year, but it really just comes to us from the Greek for the star that followed at the heels of the constellation Orion. Ain't language amazing!
July has one of the most obvious names of all the months. Originally called Quinctilis, as it was the fifth month of the old Roman calendar, it became the seventh month after Julius Caesar adopted the 12 month calendar in 45 BCE. It kept its name for that year. But in 44 BCE after Julius Caesar's death the Senate renamed the month in his honour.

For July:
🐌Read a book with a sun on the cover
🐌Read a book that was originally published in a language that is not your native tongue
🐌Read a book with an alternative title (e.g. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone/Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Ballad of Lee Cotton/Cotton