This blog feature amusing and heartwarming stories about our late Leonberger dog Bronco, as well as other Leonbergers. It also has a lot of information about the Leonberger breed, the history, care, training, Leonberger organizations, etc. I also wrote a Leonberger book, which I am featuring in the sidebar.
Category: Non-Leonberger Book Promotions
Reviews of books that are not about Leonbergers. They are books I want to promote.
This blog is primarily about Leonbergers and Leonberger books but sometimes I review other items. In this post I will review a short film that brings attention to the fight against cancer. The name of the movie is “A Simple Ad”. The screen writing was done by an on-line friend of mine Alex Diaz-Granados.
My mother passed away from cancer at the age of 56. This was devastating. She left us too early. However, every parent’s worst nightmare is losing a child. I believe that losing a child to cancer is a loss too enormous to imagine. This short film brings attention to the pain and the enormity of this loss, and it brings attention to the need to fight cancer.
I can add that fighting cancer the easy way, via the kind of donations that we all can make, or by bringing attention to it, is not futile. In the end this supports cancer research and treatment, and it has been successful. For example, today, it is very unlikely that I would die from the cancer that killed my mother.
At the beginning of the movie, we see a bookcase with family pictures including a baby, a little boy, a wedding, among others. Next, we see a couple working in the same room. The man is working on a skateboard and the woman on an ad. From their discussion the tragedy becomes apparent. The couple love each other, they carry on, but it is clear that an immense sense of loss resides in their lives.
This short film features beautiful music, a children’s choir. It is poignant and has a sad atmosphere, but it is not overly dark. To me it felt like a call to action. You can watch the movie here.
This blog is primarily about Leonbergers and Leonberger books but sometimes I review books about other dog breeds. Today I am reviewing Lab Tested: The Layman’s Guide to Living With A Labrador – June 16, 2022 by Nick Embrey. I got the paperback version on Amazon. It currently cost $8.99 and the Kindle format cost $2.99. It is 168 pages, weighs 5.9 ounces, and the size is small with dimensions 5.06 x 0.38 x 7.81 inches. The ISBN number is 978-1739631307 and the ASIN number for the Kindle is B0B4B631S8. The book is comical reflections on the life with a Labrador, and you can find the book here.
Lab Tested: The Layman’s Guide to Living With A Labrador – by Nick Embrey.
In this book the author is ruminating, with humor, on his life with a chocolate brown Labrador called Dudley. The pages are filled with fun discoveries, hilarious analogies, clever turns of word, and as a result laughter. The writing style comes across to me as very British and as I was reading the book, I imagined Hugh Grant narrating it in my head.
We’ve owned several dog breeds including a yellow Lab called Baylor and I definitely recognized Dudley’s voracious appetite, apt food thievery, and the sometimes less than palatable choice of nutriment. However, Dudley was worse than Baylor. Dudley and Gordon Ramsey would definitely have a disagreement. Our Leonberger Bronco also had a voracious appetite. Once he finished off 5lbs of roast beef meant for a dinner party. However, the difference between Bronco and Labradors such as Dudley and Baylor is that he left broccoli, carrots, and dip for the dinner guests whilst dogs like Baylor and Dudley wouldn’t have.
Like Dudley our Baylor loved swimming (see picture below) and so did our Leonberger Bronco. I knew that Leonbergers had webbed feet and are double coated but reading this book I learned that so do Labradors. In fact, several dog breeds do. I guess I did not pay attention to that. That explains why our Baylor and Bronco were our best swimmers.
Like Dudley our Baylor was mischievous, but I have to say that Dudley takes the cake. The always hungry and rambunctious Labradors can cause quite a bit of commotion, or as some call it “acts of dog”. I’m not trying to brag when I say that our Labrador was not as bad as Dudley. I just wanted to point out that’s how you get good stories. I highly recommend this witty and very entertaining book. I don’t have a photo of Dudley, so I am including a photo of our yellow Labrador swimming.
Our Labrador Baylor swimming in our in-laws swimming pool.
This blog is primarily about Leonbergers and Leonberger books but on rare occasion I write a review for a book or story that I find to be exceptional and therefore want to promote. Yesterday I read a horror story on my kindle that I found to be unprecedented and therefore I want to promote it. Incidentally, strange things happened today, which tells me this is going to be an interesting Halloween. The Hay Bale Kindle Edition by Priscilla Bettis is a short story that cost $0.99 or nothing if you have Kindle Unlimited, which I don’t. However, one dollar is quite frankly almost nothing. It is 42 pages, was released in January 2022 and the ASIN number is B09P4PJQLT.
The Hay Bale is a creepy short horror story that is better than any short horror story I’ve ever read. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the Kindle story.
Horror is not the literary category I primarily focus on, but I do like horror, and I’ve read a significant amount of horror literature including some classic horror, Stephen King’s books and several of Clive Barker’s books, such as Hell bound Heart and Mister. B Gone. I especially loved Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, which are collections of his short stories. I and my son are also inscribed into Dracula’s or Vlad III (Vlad the Impaler’s) family of protectors, which happened in a ceremony led by Dracula’s monk at the Snagov monastery in Romania. Therefore, horror is not a literary category that is foreign to me. It should be noted that the ceremony was a tourist ploy. We are not really vampires.
Books of blood was a large collection of short horror stories that really impressed me. Despite that fact “The Hay Bale” is the best short horror story I’ve ever read.
A few decades ago, Stephen King said of Clive Barker; I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker. Considering that “The Hay Bale” is the best short horror story I’ve ever read and assuming Priscilla Bettis will continue writing great short horror stories I would like to say, “I have seen the future of horror and her name is Priscilla Bettis”.
The Hay Bale is creepy, disturbing, scary and odd. The main character Claire is a Microbiologist. She is separated from her ex-husband Dan, who seems to have emotionally abused her. She has also suffered several miscarriages and is unable to adopt due to her emotional state. To get away for a while she rents a home in rural Virginia for the summer. The setting is a bit “children of the corn” like, perhaps “midsommar” like, whilst the story development reminded me of some of the stories in the Books of Blood.
What Claire experiences is both creepy and bizarre but unlike many of Clive Barker’s stories it’s not too adult, which I personally appreciate. It also makes the story readable by both adults as well as teenagers. The story is fast paced, unsettling, atmospheric, and it’s full of creepy imagery. I read the story while drinking two Halloween themed Texas beers, which I almost forgot to drink because I couldn’t take my eyes of the Kindle. I should add that Priscilla has her own unique style. She is not a Clive Barker clone. I am very much looking forward to more of her stories.
Me reading the “The Hay Bale” and drinking a Halloween Themed Pumpkin Ale.Finished reading the “The Hay Bale” and drinking a Halloween Stout.
I should mention that following my Amazon review for the story and me posting about it in a dozen beer groups with around 30,000 members something strange happened. It is possible someone played a prank on us. This afternoon my daughter and I saw a horror movie and then we sat outside in the backyard and discussed it, Dracula and this story. That’s when she noticed that there was an old rusty medieval axe in our backyard. Someone must have placed it into our fenced in backyard today. But who? The strange Axe is included in the photo below. Where is this axe coming from? Any suggestions?
After posting my review for “The Hay Bale” and talking about it on Facebook and Instagram a strange medieval looking rusty axe mysteriously appeared in our backyard. Is someone playing a prank on us?
This blog is primarily about Leonbergers and our late Leonberger Bronco as well as the book I wrote about him and his dog friends. However, sometimes I review other Leonberger books and on occasion other great books. This time I am reviewing Born in a Treacherous Time, the first book in the Dawn of Humanity series – March 8, 2019, by Jacqui Murray. This paperback is 381 pages, ISBN 978-1942101451, item weight 1.23 pounds, dimensions 6 x 0.96 x 9 inches. You can buy it from, for example, Amazon or Barnes and Noble, as a paperback or e-Book. The paperback version is currently $15.99 on Amazon.
Front cover of the book Born in a Treacherous Time by Jacqui Murray. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the book.
This book, “Born in a Treacherous Time” is the story of a Homo Habilis woman, Lucy, who lived 1.8 million years ago in Africa. The book also features a large, loyal, and brave dog “Ump” who reminded me of our large, loyal and brave Leonberger dog Le Bronco von der Löwhenhöhle.
Lucy suffers many great losses, she travels across a great rift, she is very resourceful, she is a huntress and a healer, and she survives many potentially deadly challenges. She interacts with many interesting characters and experiences many harrowing adventures. She is a survivor but a survivor with a good heart. The characters in the book are compelling, and they will touch your heart despite being of a primitive human species. The many action-packed adventures in the book, makes it difficult to put it down.
The depiction of life in the early Quaternary is realistic, which some may have a problem with. The characters in this book hunt and kill, and they are hunted and killed. They don’t eat pizza and hot dogs with relish and mustard. Life back then was brutish, cruel and short and food was raw and whatever you could get. In this book there’s loss, sadness, starvation, violence as well as a lot of adventure. So many of us hide behind our modern comforts. We eat meat without considering the destructive environmental impacts of factory farming or that the animal providing our meal was treated much more inhumanely than any free running animal killed by a hunter. We forget how harsh life used to be. I prefer realistic depictions over Disney like fairy tales.
The same is true for Ump, the friendly and brave prehistoric dog that became one of Lucy’s companions. Their friendship began after Ump’s tragic loss of his family. He did not want to move on but Lucy, having suffered so much great loss herself, encouraged him to move on. Ump was very loving and fiercely protective. Perhaps he carried a Leonberger gene? Fossil records show that prehistoric dogs and hominids came across each other in Africa 1.8 million years ago. Any domestication might have been unlikely but that doesn’t mean the story about Lucy and Ump couldn’t have happened.
Just like some of Jean M Auel’s work was made into a film, I think this book and the rest of the series could be made into a film, or a TV series. There are so many fascinating stories in this book. I should mention that Jean M Auel wrote about a time period about 20,000 years ago towards the end of the last glacial period and it was taking place in Europe. Jacqui Murray is writing about a time period 1.8 million years ago at the beginning of the ice age (Quaternary) and the first glacial periods and it is taking place in Africa. So, the setting is quite different. Like Jean M Auel Jacqui Murray did her research. I highly recommend this thrilling and enlightening book of adventures and I am looking forward to reading the next books in the series.
This is my fourth book review on my Leonberger blog. However, this time I am reviewing a novella written by an epinions friend of mine, just because I want to spread the word about his great book. It is not a Leonberger book. Epinions was an on-line review site that paid reviewers. It covered all kinds of products, books, films, software, electronics, travel, you name it. Contrary to what one might think, paying reviewers led to more honest and fair reviews because the reviewers wrote reviews without strong feelings, either way, or to promote something. Anyway, writers started talking to each other and got to know each other on-line, even though they may never have met. That’s the case with Alex Diaz-Granados and me. Unfortunately, epinions shut down.
The name of Alex’ book is Reunion: A Story. It is 40 pages, 2.56 ounces, 5.98 x 0.1 x 9.02 inches, ISBN 978-1662913679. It is currently $6.99 on Amazon, it’s $2.99 on Kindle, and it is free for subscribers of Kindle Unlimited. It is $6.99 on Barnes and Noble.
Front cover of Reunion: A Story, by Alex Diaz-Granados. Click on the photo to go to the Amazon page for the book.
First a very brief synopsis for the novella. 33-year-old Jim Garraty is a respected history professor and bestselling author who lives in New York City. But when he gets a cryptic email from his best friend from high school, Jim is forced to relive his past – and a trip to his hometown of Miami reopens old wounds he thought had healed long ago. Based on what I know about Alex, there seems to be a lot of similarities between Alex and Jim Garraty.
Typically, I like to read a little bit a few times a day. I hardly ever read a book in one sitting. I am not that way. This book was an exception. Once I started reading it, I had to finish it. It was simply so well written and gripping that I could not put it down. The story is fresh, novel and engaging. I think the story underscore how differently a teenager and an adult views life and themselves, leading to the many “what if” scenarios in life. It is a sad love story about regret and loss as well as friendship. It is a unique story yet timeless. The author describes the feelings and the thoughts of the characters in a manner that is realistic and easy to relate to. It was emotional but not too sentimental. The story has something to tell us, especially young people. It is an easy and quick reading, and it is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. I highly recommend it.
Back cover of Reunion: A Story, by Alex Diaz-Granados. Click on the photo to go to the Barnes & Noble page for the book.
Leonberger Life 