A delicious, tangible, sort of incredible story with a lot of rich descriptions and characters I'd like to meet again. This was the first book by Joanne Harris I'd read, but I'd love to read more. ( )

Harris did a beautiful job at describing all of the sensations, and experiences one has while drinking a glass of wine, and brings those emotions into her characters combined with the divulging into the world of wine making and life in a small town, the bonds a person can have with in close-knit communities, and how those bonds affect a person’s life, Blackberry Wine was a well written, beautifully told story, that pulled me in from page one.

In the story, Jay flees England buying a farm house in a outside a small town, that brought back memories of a childhood mentor, he brings a few possessions, including the six bottles of “specials” (wine) and a typewriter, that he uses to write his next big hit, gaining inspiration from the towns people and a “scandal” that happened years before he arrived. But instead, the “specials” invoke something different for Jay, as he reminisces his childhood years, times spent with his mentor, and him reconnecting to his mentor, as he find himself again, and his place in life. All of the emotions and memories are brought out with each bottle of wine from the “specials” collection which brings out memories, senses and emotions from all people, when they join him. The wine, as it seems has a bit of magical ability, allowing people to explore themselves in their pasts.

As you can see there’s a bit of an interesting underbelly of magic here with the wine. Often the wine is described as talking, or laughing as it sits in the duffel bag, or in the wine cellar, and often the narrator states when the each bottle is open, the “wine’s” voice is exposed. What makes the book even more interesting is that the narrator is a bottle of wine. The whole story is told from the eyes, of an unopened bottle of wine, which truly is one of the most unique methods of narration I’ve ever seen. And if you already have guessed, the story ends, when the bottle is opened and drunk.

Other parts of the story contained farming life, small town life and gossip of the scandal that happened in the town, involving Jay’s neighbour, I won’t go to far into that, for fear of ruining it, but I liked that side plot of the story, although parts were predictable, I still enjoyed that part of the story. The book also bounces around time periods a bit, going from present time, to years in Jay’s childhood, although each chapter labels which time you’re in so you shouldn’t be confused what time period you’re in.

One criticism is that some of the characters seem to be one sided, and a little stereotypical, it’s not a big issue for me, because there’s only a few I really found to be like this, but there were just a few characters, that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the story, they just were. Also there was this one part, I can’t say what, but the one part near the end was a little weird, and also didn’t seem to fit with the story.

Overall a wonderful book full of magic, and the quiet life of small town living, and the emotions and deliciousness of wine drinking and the powers it can has over ones emotions, self and friendship.

Review is also on my blog: http://juliebooks.blogspot.com/2009/0... ( )

What can I say? I don't drink, but this book makes me want to.
You have to be a certain brand of author to be able to talk about the taste and textures of foods and drinks throughout a whole book (actually several, since she did Chocolat as well), but Joanne Harris does this effortlessly, and most importantly for me, without repetition.
Maybe it is too easy to sound charming when talking about an adorable French village with all its inherent quirks and tales, but Harris is able to portray atmosphere, ambience, call it what you will, but you can immerse yourself in a book like this as easily as if it were the wine that gave the book its name. And it's the kind of book I feel people with all kinds of book preferences can enjoy. ( )

Set in the same French village as Chocolat and with many of the same characters, this is the story of Jay, a writer looking to return to the way of his childhood and the way of life of his mentor. This one definitely wasn't as good as Chocolat or any of the other Joanne Harris novels that I've read. I had a really hard time getting into the story and did not feel attached to any of the characters. It did, however, make me want to garden and bake bread. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2009/05... ( )