martinfreemanstuff

🐑🐏🐑 Our latest piece is live! 🐑🐏🐑 @morgan-leigh dives into the world of Three Bags Full, a beloved mystery novel by German author Leonie Swann in which a flock of sheep try to solve the murder of their shepherd—narrated, of course, from the perspective of the sheep. The movie version, which is out this week, is titled The Sheep Detectives.

This book—which Morgan describes as "magic in a bottle"—has developed a cult following over the past two decades. But why?

Reading Three Bags Full had fully persuaded me of its genius, but its popularity remained a mystery. How had a decades-old book about sheep solving a murder become such a phenomenon? To solve this mystery, I set out to do some detective work of my own. I retraced my steps, picking up the trail of Three Bags Full devotees first back to the Bluesky book club, where I got insights from Cait and “the Mayor of Bluesky,” Joshua J. Friedman. Then I sought out historical context and expertise from crime fiction aficionado Sarah Weinman and books podcaster Christopher Hermelin. I swung by my friend’s German husband, Simon, to get a sense of what reading the book had been like when it was first published all those years ago. And finally, I got to the heart of the matter: I spoke to Leonie Swann herself. 

[ed note: @elizabethminkel started reading the book to edit the piece and Morgan is right, it is SO GOOD.]

Holy shit! Err, I mean... hello and... WOW 🤯 and how are you? 😆

Warning! Posting some hot stuff!

Thanks so much for the link!

Edit:

There is one more.

This has deeply impacted my vocabulary. I constantly quote it. BUT.

I have been misquoting it this whole time. I've been saying "the passage of time is cruel and unrelenting" and it makes me SO MAD that that's not actually what it says. Not only does nobody get my reference but I'm also not even referencing it correctly.

...about fangirlying over Ncuti Gatwa...

...cannot be emphasized enough.

every march 15 in rome they restage the assassination at torre argentina. you know. the literal ruins of the curia of pompey. the exact place where it actually happened in 44 BCE.

and then they put his body on a litter and do a whole funeral procession through the city. with professional mourners and everything. they literally blocked traffic for this.

like imagine missing your bus because rome decided to re-kill julius caesar today.