If you need a shoulder to cry on

We recently compiled the Brontë mentions from all the Top 10 lists The Guardian has published. Well, there's one more to add today. According to Elizabeth Buccan, the huge biography The Brontës by Juliet Barker is the fourth best book to get through a divorce.

4. The Brontes by Juliet Barker
Juliet Barker's monumental biography falls into the category of tried-and-tested books that won't let you down. A fiercely revisionist, meticulously researched reassessment of the background, landscape and events that shaped and formed the lives of Patrick Bronte and his children, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, it breathes fresh air and commonsense into the dark myths and fantasies that envelop the sisters in particular. I love it for the hard work that the author invested in it, her detail, her scrupulous integrity and her determination to get at the truth about the individuals and the family as a whole. She argues well and powerfully that "without this intense family relationship, some of the greatest novels in the English language might never have been written".

But just don't wait to read it until when (and especially IF) you get divorced - it's worth it all the same.

Categories: Brontëites, Biography