Rochester, the rock star and Heathcliff, the emo boy

Reader and friend of BrontëBlog's Stephanie has alerted us to the existence of yet another Jane Eyre retelling to be published, Jane by April Lindner. From Publishers Marketplace:

Julie Scheina at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has bought English professor April Lindner's debut YA novel Jane, for the Poppy imprint. The story is a contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre, in which a Sarah Lawrence dropout-turned-nanny falls in love with her employer, an iconic rock star on the brink of a comeback. Publication is set for fall 2010. Amy Williams of McCormick & Williams Literary Agency did the deal for world rights.

Ruben Toledo's new covers for Penguin Classics, including Wuthering Heights, are discussed today in the New York Times:

Was Heathcliff — the wild child of Wuthering Heights — a 19th-century emo boy? (...) On Aug. 25, to coordinate with New York’s Fashion Week, Penguin Classics will unveil three paperback hits from youthquakes past, updated with stylish new covers by Ruben Toledo. (If you read DailyCandy.com, you’ll recognize Toledo’s playful watercolors of gamines and hipsters — angular of frame and tangy with Pixy Stix splashes of color.) (...)
Toledo’s covetable, contrasty covers look like Belle and Sebastian albums, or ads for Steve Madden shoes. The minx he’s drawn for the cover of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” is dressed as dramatically as an Olsen twin and has feline eyes big as saucers, their murky blue irises mirrored in the moor behind her. Heathcliff lurks on the book’s back, brooding and thick-browed as the vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen. (...)
Will this sleek trio of high-concept literary accessories end up in the hands of hipsters on the L train, come August? And can their design turn screen-fed millennials who’ve only watched Austen, Brontë and Hawthorne at the movies into readers who appreciate them on the printed page, too? Let’s hope so. There’s nothing wrong with bringing novelty to publishing; the best works will always transcend any fashion statement; and the word “novel,” after all, derives from the Latin novus, for “new.” Besides, even a very old book is new to someone who’s never read it before. (Liesl Schillinger)

Flavorwire seems also very excited with these new designs.

Huliq News talks about the exhibition These Days: Elegies for Modern Times (April 2009-February 2010) at the Massachussets Museum of Modern Art which includes works by Sam Taylor-Wood that are now in exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Massachusetts Museum Of Contemporary Art runs an exhibition named 'These Days: Elegies for Modern Times' through Feb 28, 2010, at Building 4, Second floor. (...)
Selections from Taylor-Wood's photo-graphic series, Ghosts and After Dark, are also on view. In Ghosts Taylor-Wood takes on Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights by photographing the moors in Yorkshire, England, in the harshness of winter to speak of Bronte's themes of thwarted love and suffering.

About.com reviews A Journey Into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg.

An insane wife hidden and locked away in the attic was the mystery at the heart of the classic Jane Eyre. As a plot device, the mentally ill Bertha served as the obstacle to Jane and Rochester’s happiness and would conveniently die by her own hand to insure they’d end up together in true love-story fashion.
But who was Bertha?
What led to her being locked away?
What was her story? (Laura Sternberg)

Discussing Nicholas Sarkozy's recent problems with jogging, the Telegraph can't help but appeal to the Heathcliffgate:

That triviality is central to British politics is self-evident. Gordon Brown used to be credited – at least by the more fanciful of his admirers – with the brooding good looks of a Heathcliff. Now the Prime Minister just looks tired: grey of hair, slack of jaw, baggy of eye, a man starting to feel his age. (Max Davidson)

Bookin' with Bingo interviews author Emilie Richards:

What books would you say have made the biggest impression on you, especially starting out?
As a child I read everything I could get my hands on. I basically swept through our small public library and read indiscriminately. I loved Jane Eyre and Gone with the Wind and other popular novels about strong women overcoming incredible obstacles. I think it’s clear that theme left an indelible impression on my work.

And The Book Butterfly interviews author Alyson Noël:

If you could dive into any novel and become one of the characters for the day, what novel would you choose?
I’d choose WUTHERING HEIGHTS so I could be Catherine and skip the whole “social advancement” stage, tell Heathcliff I love him, and alleviate a whole lot of suffering! But then it wouldn’t be WUTHERING HEIGHTS anymore would it? So maybe not.

New posts on The Valve about Villette. The Portuguese blog Cuidadocomodalmata also posts about Charlotte Brontë's book. Among Books and Novel Reviewer recommend Jane Eyre, Livre du Jour discusses Agnes Grey. The Sims3 blog A Legendary Legacy includes Anne Brontë's Farewell in its latest installment.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Art-Exhibitions, Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, References, Villette, Wuthering Heights