Joanne Harris – Favourite Things
Joanne Harris is a best-selling author and scriptwriter. She was a teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels, including Chocolat in 1999, which went on to be an Oscar-nominated film. Since then, she has written eighteen more novels and short stories, game scripts, cookbooks, screenplays, and a musical. Her latest novel, Honeycomb, is out now.
These are a few of Joanne Harris’ favourite things…
Packing for imaginary trips
Ever since I was a child, I have enjoyed packing for imaginary journeys. My husband thinks it is hilarious; he will find me in the bedroom with a bag or suitcase, putting things in it. Recently, there has been nowhere to go, but I still do it. And when I look back on when I was little, most of the games I played were something to do with packing a bag for adventures. I do this most when I am stressed, so at the moment, the house is absolutely filled with go-bags, just in case there is a zombie apocalypse or I have to vacate suddenly. I have emergency bags all over the house. There is a lovely bag packed for a trip to Hawaii in my bedroom, which I have no concrete plans to make but was nice to pack for anyway.
Patak’s hot lime pickle
Chocolate is not on the list. I like chocolate in an ordinary way, but I am certainly not a chocaholic, contrary to popular belief. My go-to sandwich is crunchy peanut butter and Patak’s hot lime pickle. It is a mix that my daughter invented, and there is something about the very hot pickle, sharp lime and crunch of the peanut butter on granary bread. It would be my desert island food.
Performing
Music and performance are such significant parts of my life. Before lockdown, we had several stage performances set up with the band I have with my husband, our best friend and a younger player, who we involved in the project a little later. We have a musical storytelling show that has been going on for six years and which is sort of based on my new book Honeycomb.
I have always felt that stories didn’t like to stay on the page; they like to find their audience through different mediums. A story that is read aloud is different to a story on a page, and a story that is told is different to a story that is read aloud. A story performed with theatrics and music is an entirely different experience, and there is a much closer rapport with the audience that way. We were unable to rehearse during lockdown, so I had fun ordering masks from the internet and building the visual aspect of the performance to try and find more interesting visual ways to tell stories.
Seeing musical theatre with my daughter
I didn’t go to the theatre to see musicals as a child; I think my mother thought they were trivial or just too expensive. When I did go to the theatre, it was to see something deemed “educational”. So I came to love musical theatre through my daughter. Before lockdown, she was a lighting technician on the West End and is a lifelong lover of musical theatre.
I remember taking her to The Lion King, aged nine, the perfect age to see it for the first time, and she was rapt throughout – I wept at her raptness. It wasn’t just the music or the story, which she already knew; it was the experience. Going to watch the shows together is something we continued long after she moved out and got married.
My greenhouse hammock
This has been one of my favourite places these last eighteen months. It is the place I go to when I want to relax and get away. I have a big garden with a big greenhouse and inside the greenhouse is a hammock under a fig tree. When I want to hide away and be nowhere near my phone or desk, I will take a book and have a lie in my hammock. I was there pretty much all summer last year.
It is a self-indulgent thing to do, to lie there, swing, look at the sky through the glass and do nothing or read a book, not for review, but just for myself. If I used my imagination, I could almost be on that trip to Hawaii I packed for.
Enjoyed Joanne Harris’ favourites? Explore the full Favourite Things archive here.