It is always such a pleasure to re-read

Sarah Vance entitles her article for the L.A. Books Examiner, What if Charlotte Brontë had an iPod? in what can be considered a perfect coda for our recent post about the Brontës' works available for iPods and iPhones.

So you can imagine my great joy when I discovered today that you can download audiobooks from the Internet to your iPod. All you need is a County of Los Angeles library card. I don’t know if this service is also available through the Los Angeles Public Library, but it’s worth clicking on their website to find out.

An unabridged version of Jane Eyre read by Josephine Bailey can be downloaded from the County of Los Angeles Public Library website.

Stephenie Meyer's Brontë inspirations are once again in the press. This time in The Examiner:

Stephenie cites many classic novels as inspiring her Twilight series. Specifically: Twilight: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. New Moon: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Eclipse: Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Breaking Dawn: Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Andy Williamson)

Another writer with an obvious taste for the Brontës is Anne Donovan, author of Being Emily, who is interviewed by Trashionista:

Describe your latest book in 15 words or fewer.
Fiona's family is nothing like the Brontes, but her life resembles a Victorian novel. [...]
What are your favourite books?
Too many to say. Wuthering Heights, Daniel Deronda, Great Expectations, Anna Karenina - all those big Victorian novels. Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Also poetry - the Romantic poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Many short story writers - Alistair MacLeod is just one. And I'm currently going through an obsession with Willa Cather's novels and reading Dante's Divine Comedy in translation (just about to get to Paradise!) (Elle Symonds)

Finding Dulcinea talks about Women Writers of the 19th Century:

The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, each became successful poets and novelists in their day. But as Bibliomania, an online literature and study guide, notes, "Their works were published initially under the names Ellis (Emily), Currer (Charlotte), and Acton (Anne) Bell, due to the fact that it was considered unseemly at the time for women to write and publish books."

The Guardian mentions Jane Eyre 2006 in passing in an article about the renewal of the costume drama Lark Rise to Candleford, one of the few bonnet dramas that survives the crisis:

Cosy BBC1 Sunday night drama Lark Rise to Candleford has been recommissioned for a third series, escaping a BBC crackdown on historical bonnets and breeches costume drama.
Series three of the gentle series, which stars Julia Sawalha, Dawn French, Olivia Hallinan, Jason Merrells and Brendan Coyle, will be filmed later this summer for transmission in 2010.
Bill Gallagher's adaptation of Flora Thompson's memoir of her Oxfordshire childhood has been criticised for being too soft-centred, but it is an audience favourite and averaged 6.4 million viewers for its second series.
The show's second run started with a Christmas Special on 21 December last year, followed by 11 episodes which began on 4 January and which will finish on 15 March.
Lark Rise To Candleford is written and executive produced by Gallagher, and the series executive producer is Susan Hogg.
The recommission means the costume drama has escaped a BBC crackdown on bonnets and breeches drama, which will see fewer such shows make it to the screen after the BBC in recent years broadcast series including Bleak House, Cranford, Sense and Sensibility and Jane Eyre. (Ben Dowell)

Publishers Weekly talks about the forthcoming book by Robert Goolrick, A Reliable Wife:

At the Gotham Group, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein is out with film rights to Robert Goolrick's just-published novel from Algonquin, A Reliable Wife. Doug Stewart at Sterling Lord sold the book to Chuck Adams back in May 2007, shortly after Algonquin published Goolrick's debut, the memoir The End of the World As We Know It. This book, set just after the turn of the century in Wisconsin, follows a marriage born out of strange circumstance--a wealthy businessman places a newspaper personal advertisement for "a reliable wife." When said wife gets off the train from Chicago, scheming to take her new man for all he's worth, a clash of wills ensues; Algonquin is pitching the book as Wuthering Heights meets Rebecca. (Rachel Deahl)

Comics Bulletin reviews a comic book called City of Dust, which - surprise, surprise - is not Jane Eyre:

As it’s described on writer Steve Niles’ site, City of Dust proposes a future where fiction is made illegal and where these very same works of imagination stalk the streets committing brutal murder. This being Niles, this isn’t Jane Eyre or Huck Finn--it’s muscular, slavering werewolves and erudite Max Schreck-like vampires. (Charles Webb)

The blogosphere today is full of Jane Eyre references: Penedesfera posts about the novel in Catalan and Buenos Libros nos Dé Dios in Spanish. La Terrasse devotes an interesting post to Charlotte Brontë's novel:

When I’ve written about Charlotte Brontë previously (on Tales of Angria and The Professor), it has been in the light of Villette, her best novel. It is always such a pleasure to re-read, so sure is it of its ground: how hard it is for shy and sensitive people to find true and reciprocated affection, but how rewarding once the struggle is over. Going back to the earlier novels, it is always surprising to find them less sure of themselves – but they are, and Charlotte seems to have worked her way towards her masterpiece in the same tentative way that its protagonist Lucy Snowe makes her way in the world. (Read more)

Finally, The Island of the Voices is rereading Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights