I find Joanne Harris quite fascinating, or at least the writer part of her. I love the way she writes (as described on her website), the covers of her books are so different and the titles! - Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, The Lollipop Shoes, I find them so evocative. I am currently reading Chocolat after aborting it on first attempt, I think I read it too soon after watching the film and couldn't separate the two, and I'm now really enjoying it.
So what can I tell you about Joanne? She was born in Barnsley in 1964 to an English father and a French mother. She went on to become a teacher and whilst she was teaching she had three novels published - The Evil Seed, Sleep, Pale Sister and Chocolat. Since then she has had published a further seven novels -she writes a book a year - a short story collection and two cookery books along with Fran Warde.
She has won a variety of British and International awards and has been published in over forty countries. Chocolat has been made into a successful film.
She was born in her grandparent's sweet shop and her life has always been surrounded by food and folklore as her great-grandmother was said to be a witch and healer.
Joanne is extremely secretive about any work she has in progress, often not even telling her agent and has more than one project on the go so she can jump from one to the other.
Bibliography
The Evil Seed (1989)
Sleep, Pale Sister (1993)
Chocolat (1999)
Blackberry Wine (2000)
Five Quarters of the Orange (2001)
Coastliners (2002)
Holy Fools (2003)
Gentleman and Players (2005)
The Lollipop Shoes (2007)
Runemarks (For children and young adults) (2007)
Jigs & Reels (Short story collection) (2004)
The French Kitchen (Cookbook) (2002)
The French Market (Cookbook) (2005)
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