5-Page Book Club: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swan
Plus, what I'm reading and watching
What I’m Reading and Watching
Piglet by Lottie Hazell. I tore through this novel about a cookbook editor who becomes obsessed with food after she finds out her fiance has cheated on her. The disaster compounds with every meal until Piglet is battling with a fragile tower of croquembouche on the very morning of her wedding. The prose is captivating and the food is described in the most intriguing way.
The Butcher of The Forest by Premee Mohamed. The setting of this novella had me spellbound. In a magical forest full of wondrous and deadly creatures, two children are held captive, and Veris must rescue them by the end of the day, before all three fall prey to the forest’s dark enchantments.
Mickey 17. I really enjoyed this movie about a man (Robert Pattinson) who signs up for a space mission as an “expendable” and gets killed over and over again. It’s goofy and weird and has some pretty dark humor. The last third of movie is very familiar to science fiction fans, but overall, I liked that the film fully explored an interesting take on human cloning.
5-Page Book Club: Three Bags Full
“Miss Maple was the cleverest sheep in all Glennkill.”
Welcome to 5-Page Book Club, in which we read five pages of a novel to see what we can learn as writers. This feature is for paid subscribers; free subscribers get a short preview.
Today, let’s discuss five pages of Leonie Swann’s Three Bags Full, in which a flock of Irish sheep set out to solve the murder of their shepherd. The novel was originally published in German in 2005 but has just been re-released in a new paperback edition. A film adaptation will star Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson.
You can read the first five pages of Three Bags Full here for free (click the link and then click the button that says “read an excerpt”).
Limited Anthropomorphism
When I picked up this novel, I thought I was going to read about sheep who were secretly quite human, as in other animal-centric cozy mysteries I’ve read and loved. But although the sheep in this novel are certainly more sentient than real sheep, most of their thoughts are more sheep-like than human-like, which lends a lot of charm to the novel’s voice.
When the sheep come upon their poor dead shepherd, staked through the middle with a spade, their reactions are far more sheepish than human:
In the first flush of alarm, naturally there had been a few frantic cries of, “Who’s going to bring us hay now?” and, “A wolf! There’s a wolf about!”
Murder-by-spade couldn’t possibly be committed by a wolf, but of course when sheep feel fear they instinctively think of this typical predator. Their reactions signal that this story will be told through the point of view of very unusual sleuths, which is fresh and fun.