Beaucoup de chocolat ...

Organised by the City of York Libraries, York Big City Read is an annual event where everyone comes together to read the same book and the share events celebrating the chosen novel. This we have been asked to read Joanne Harris' Chocolat, a dark and decadent story about chocolatier Vianne Rocher's attempts to set up a chocolaterie in a conservative French town.

The festival programme was a treasure of events based on this famous book including chocolate-making workshop, events related to French art and culture, chocolate testing for adults and kids, guided walks around York looking at the city's chocolaty history. Copies of Chocolat were available free from all libraries, in hard copy, audio format and even in other languages. It was a fantastically interesting summer and the best event of all was the closing one last Tuesday with Joanne Harris returning to York to spend the evening with her readers.

For the very few people who don't know Joanne yet, her third book Chocolat became so famous and celebrated around the world that was made in an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Since then, she has written eight more novels, of which The Lollipop Shoes is a beautiful continuation of Vianne Rocher's story, as well as short stories and two cookbooks. Although I read the book 10 years ago when the film came out, I re-read Chocolat for this occasion as I didn't remember the book very well (old age is approaching!) and enjoyed reading it immensely. I also read The Lollipop Shoes and I liked it even more, as the setting moves to Montmartre in Paris and and the plot gets enriched with more fascinating characters.

(The lovely Joanne Harris)

The Evening with Joanne Harris was wonderful. She is a very knowledgeable and witty lady, very French and English at the same time (her mother is French and her father from Barnsley, Yorkshire and she lives in Yorkshire) and she managed to sparkle up an audience of usually very quiet English people. We also had the opportunity to sample some delicious chocolates offered by Hotel Chocolat, a wonderful chocolate store that I can only recommend if you are a chocolate lover like myself.

Meet Kate ...(and book giveaway)

…as in Kate Atkinson. Unfortunately she’s not a friend of mine but I wish she were, as she seems to be to the kind of woman I admire and respect. She’s intelligent, clever, witty, without any false modesty and above she is a writer.

Kate Atkinson is a well known author from York who moved up to Scotland many years ago. She became well known for her book Behind the Scenes at the Museum, a story which follows a few generations of a family living in the centre of town and touches on how it feels like living in a museum when you live in York, but is more a tale about families and their peculiarities. Kate describes the sense of history with great affection in the first pages of the novel:
“Guy Fawkes was born here, Dick Turpin was hung a few streets away and Robinson Crusoe, that other great hero, is also a native son of this city. Who is to say which of these is real and which a fiction?”
But the book that has really conquered my absolute devotion to Kate is her last one “When Will There Be Good News” the third installment of the Jackson Brodie’s detective stories, although you don’t need to have read the previous two ones, Case Histories and One Good Turn, to enjoy the last one.
Last Thursday evening I had the pleasure to attend one of her readings/talks at York St John University, an event of the York Literature Festival. I love going to authors readings and meeting my favourite authors, if only for a few fleeting moments, but this time I was hoping not to be disappointed as I like Kate’s novel o much. Of course I wasn’t.
After reading an excerpt from her still unpublished new novel, which will be out in August, she talked about her beginnings in York and her first steps as a writer, where she gets her ideas from, how she creates her characters, etc. all in her own very wry English humour. She then answered all our questions and ended up with a book signing.

I told her how much I love her writing as, when you read her stories, you don’t want to rush to the end, but you also really appreciate her language, her “nice sentences” as she calls them. Kate’s stories encapsulate her wit and pathos as a writer of fiction, and the joy that she takes in reading it aloud proves her own claim to be a ‘cheerful writer’.

To celebrate Kate, I’m giving away one of her books and because I have already had a giveaway on my friend Maria Grazia’s blog FLY HIGH and I don’t want to repeat myself, I’m offering the winner to choose among these four books that I love:

Behind The Scenes at the Museum, Case Histories, Human Croquet and When Will There Be Good News. Just leave a comment below and the Easter Bunny will pick the winner on Easter Eve.