Book Clubs, Book Reviews... but do we really need books?

As we informed on our previous post, the PBS has launched a website about the 2006 production of Jane Eyre that will be aired this month (remember that the DVD is already available in the US market). But this is not the only thing that PBS is organizing around this series.

The Masterpiece Theatre Book Club is pleased to announce our Winter/Spring 2007
titles:

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (...)

The Masterpiece Theatre Book Club gives viewers the opportunity to read and discuss selected books alongside their screen adaptations.

Here you can find a series of discussion questions to be used in a book club meeting. For instance:

Central to Jane Eyre's struggle for fulfillment is her ambition to transcend the limits placed upon women in Victorian society. How does Jane navigate the gap between society's expectations and her innermost desires? In what ways do traditional gender roles both hinder her progress and help her achieve a measure of contentment? Do the obstacles Jane confronts have parallels to the barriers faced by women today? Discuss sexual politics in the novel. How do other women in Charlotte Brontë's novel respond to Jane's freethinking ways? Does the film's portrayal of male/female relationships stay true to the author's vision? (Read more)

And now a book review. Starving Hysterical Naked is a new literature blog. One of its firsts posts is a review of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. No better way to start :).

Do you remember the recent posts about how some US public libraries are tossing out classic books ? A lot of articles and posts have been published but the last word is for Jon Swift:

(...) If book huggers think reading is so important, they should watch the movie Fahrenheit 451. In that film (which I'm sure is better than the book, which I have not actually read) people live in a future Utopian society where the government keeps the people safe from terrorism and everyone can afford big-screen televisions. The hero of the film is a librarian who has his hands full freeing up shelf space. By the end of the film they arrive at a solution that makes everyone happy. Bookworms memorize the books they like and recite them to someone who cares. I think if people did that today, it would free up even more shelf space for things like video games, which actually promote the skills kids will need to fight the wars of the 21st
century. (Read more)

LOL.

Categories: Jane Eyre,Websites,Wuthering Heights