June Calendar CAT

June is a wonderful month in the Northern hemisphere if you like to be outdoors.The days are long, the sun is warm, and the strawberries are at their best (at least in my neck of the woods). The month is named for the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter, and patroness of matrimony.
Authors born in June can be found here: http://librarybooklists.org/literarybirths/bjune.htm
Notable days in the calendar are: World Environment Day (5), Bloomsday celebrating James Joyce (16), Midsummer (21)
One of the more unusual days is celebrated in Iceland on the first Sunday in June: Sjómannadagurinn, i.e. Seaman’s day. The International IMO Day of the Seafarer is on 25 June. The world observes World Oceans Day on 8 June, World Refugee Day on 20 June, International Asteroid Day on 30 June.

June is also Aquarium Month, Black Music Month, as well as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.
The Zodiac signs of June are Gemini and Cancer.
The flower of the month is the rose.
June birthstones are pearl and alexandrite.

Have fun choosing your book(s)! Here’s the link to the Wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2024_CalendarCAT#June:_Hosting:_MissWats...

I've been meaning to read Compass Rose by John Casey for ages, so I'll be picking that book to go along with the rose being the flower of the month!

I think I till try to get to Apothecary Rose by Candace Rob in honor of the flower of the month.

As June 4th is the Finnish Flag Day, I will be reading Snow Angels by James Thompson which is set in Finland.

I'll be reading Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev for Father's Day and for my son, born on Midsummer's Day.

My plan is to read A June of Ordinary Murders by Conor Brady.

First month of winter for me, so I plan to read Snow: The Biography.

I think I’m going to read Father and Son.

June 2nd is Italy’s national day, so I plan to read Natalia Ginzburg’s All Our Yesterdays.

It is also in June the Nebula awards are announced at the 2024 SFWA Nebula Conference, which will be held June 6-9.
So a current or former Nebula nominee or winner would also fit this month: https://www.librarything.com/award/247/Nebula-Award
I just gave up on The crane Husband, but I might make it through either The terraformers or Untethered Sky, nominated in the Novel and Novelette category respectively.
I also have The water outlaws and The saint of bright doors on hold at the library.

For Pride Month, I read A Little Village Blend by Nathan Burgoine.

For Italy's National Day I read All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg. It's set in Turin and a poverty-stricken southern village during WWII and I recommend it highly. Ginzburg lived through it.

I might try some of the other Italian books on my ereaders e.g. Voices in the Evening and A Perfect Hoax by Italo Svevo

I read Heartstopper Volume 5 for Pride Month.

I read A Match for the Reluctant Bride by Tess Thompson since the month of June is traditionally a month for weddings and brides.

I read The Saint of Bright Doors in time for the 59th Annual Nebula Awards ceremony (tomorrow). It is nominated for best Novel, and although I would put it last of the nominees I've read so far, I found it interesting in a Kafkaesque way.
At times nearly incomprehensive, jarring, odd, and still somehow compelling.

A couple of days ago was the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

By Chance Alone / Max Eisen
4 stars

Max Eisen was a teenager in Hungary with three younger siblings when his Jewish family was ordered to pack up and leave in 1944. Apparently they were one of the last Jewish communities in Europe to be taken to the concentration camps. It turns out his mother, aunt, and siblings were all immediately sent to the gas chambers on arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He, his father, and uncle all worked in labour camps for a while, and eventually, Max was the only one left. He managed to survive along with two cousins (one on each side of his family). Lucky for him, he ended up working in one of the surgery rooms at Auschwitz, which did help him survive. He was part of the “Death March” that came as the war was wrapping up and it wasn’t easy to figure out what to do with himself after or where to go.

This was very good. There are plenty of books on the Holocaust, but of course everyone had a slightly different experience and there are always new things to learn from all those experiences. Max’s promise to his father was that he’d tell people what happened there, and he also tours and talks about his experience (or he did – he was eighty-something when this book was written and/or published in 2016). He ended up in Canada, married, and had two sons.