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Title: Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris, Alex Jennings ISBN: 0-7540-5500-0 Publisher: Chivers Audio Books Pub. Date: June, 2002 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 10 List Price(USD): $94.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.03 (40 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Worthy follow-up book to Chocolat
Comment: Joanne Harris peoples her stories with characters who are more than a little fey, individuals who possess a touch of magic and who live in the realm of myth or fairy tale. In Blackberry Wine, the magical character is Joe Cox, the pivotal character of Jay, an author's, youth in a small English village. Joe had a magical cottage and garden and made wine from the fruits and berries on his squatter's land by a river, and was the main character in Jay's award-winning novel. Joe's sudden disappearance devastated Jay. When he suffers depression and writer's block, he buys, sight unseen, an 18th century chateau. Joe's bottles of wine, which he's been carting around with him for the past 2 decades, also move to the French chateau. As Jay begins drinking them, magic happens, and there's the over-riding question of, Where is Joe now, and could it be that he's that guy who...?
To say more would be to say too much.
Lovely book.
Rating: 3
Summary: Disappointing, but I had very high expectations
Comment: As a big fan of Joanne Harris, I was excited to read Blackberry Wine. Maybe I just could not relate to Jay or to Joe the mysterious ghostly gardener. I finished this book in just a few hours and it did hold my attention. It did include beautiful scenary with great details of nature and the art of gardening. The character development was fairly flat. The great mystery of the of the silent neighbor Marise was disappointing. After Chocolate and Five Quarters of the Orange, I was expecting another 5-star novel. Instead I got a solid, interesting, and decent book. Definitely read her other novels first!
Rating: 4
Summary: Blackberry Wine
Comment: Joanne Harris has created a wonderful story that isn't pretentious in the least, instead focusing on what she obviously considers the finer points in life - wine, food and the company of others. The story is fairly simple, but that is half the charm and happily the narrative flow stumbles only once, towards the end, but the mistake is rectified and I was left feeling satisfied by the turn of the last page.
Jay Mackintosh is a writer famous for his first book, Jackapple Joe. Since then he has had writer's block, producing by-the-numbers pulp sci-fi under a pen name to take care of his debts and to keep him in the lifestyle he enjoys. He is widely considered to be the writer who doesn't write, his girlfriend in particular contemptuous of his choices. He receives six bottles of wine from an old friend from his childhood, and here his adventures begin. For the first half of the book, each chapter jumps between his childhood and the challenges he coped with and the friendships he made, and the present day, where he becomes progressively unsatisfied with his joyless life. He eventually buys a property in a tiny little town in France that reminds him of 'the good old days'. He begins to write again, becomes friends with the residents and rediscovers the beauty of life.
And it works really well. Harris has a real gift with words, in particular when describing earthy scenes and food and drink. I felt like I should be drinking a bottle wine while reading, everything was just so rich and tangible. The childhood scenes are tinged with nostalgia and probably aren't as enjoyable as the present day events, which eventually take over the entire book anyway.
The only problem was when his girlfriend visits from London to take back her man. I found this section - mercifully brief but unfortunately it hampered the conclusion - as tacked on, in a way. I understood that it was necessary for Jay to truly learn his lessons, but I didn't like it at all. For a book that had pretty much coasted along with the characters enjoying each other and their surroundings, to suddenly have this conflict mar the pace of the novel, well, it didn't work. Thankfully this section is resolved fairly quickly and we can go back to the sedated pace of before. The ending is expected, but welcome, I could see it coming a mile away, and when it did, I was satisfied.
Overall, I would recommend this to someone who wants to take a relaxing wander through the vineyards of rural France. Nothing is hurried, no great life-truths are unveiled, but it never tries to do this so that can be forgiven. Highly recommended.
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Title: Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris ISBN: 0060958022 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 04 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Coastliners : A Novel by Joanne Harris ISBN: 0060958014 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 14 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Chocolat by Joanne Harris ISBN: 014100018X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 07 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: My French Kitchen : A Book of 120 Treasured Recipes by Joanne Harris, Fran Warde ISBN: 0060563524 Publisher: Morrow Cookbooks Pub. Date: 14 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Holy Fools : A Novel by Joanne Harris ISBN: 0060559128 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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