A formula that always works

Anne Rice is interviewed in the Riverside Press-Enterprise. In her opinion the Twilight saga success can be traced back to Jane Eyre:

Jennifer Dean: What do you think of the current vampire types like those in "Twilight" and "True Blood?"
Rice: It's fun. I think there's nothing there to be frightened about or upset about. I've seen both the "Twilight" series and I think they were just romances for young teens. I mean, it's the same formula as "Jane Eyre" basically. The young girl ... the other mysterious figure takes an interest in her and is both protective and yet is a threat. And it's kind of, I think, Stephenie Meyer hit on that formula and it's a formula that always works. She's just done it in a new way. I'm amazed that parents are kind of frightened. I think the kids reading the book know that it's fiction. There were people a hundred years ago frightened when people were reading the book "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë. There's nothing to be frightened about. It's just fiction.

The Guardian publishes its best of TV in 2009. Tom Hardy's Heathcliff appears but not directly:

5. The Take (Sky 1) Tom Hardy is a star. And sex on a stick. His Heathcliff later in the year called for smelling salts. (Kathryn Flett)

The Charleston Gazette invites Kanawha County readers to vote in the third round of the Kanawha County Public Library's Book Brawl. Wuthering Heights is paired with The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

A review of Life Class: The Selected Memoirs of Diana Athill is published in The Guardian. It seems that another interesting book project is in progress:

There is the prospect of a book of her correspondence with Jean Rhys, author of Wide Sargasso Sea, to whom she was editor, confidante and "nanny". She is loving going through the letters again, missives from another life. As she shows me little extracts, I hear the cadences of her abiding sternness of will, taking on all-comers, and living to tell the tales. (Tim Adams)

Penguin Brontës are recommended for Christmas in The Salisbury Post. banker from Chicago identifies himself with Wuthering Heights (!):

Johnathan Choe, executive vice-president of retail banking for Fifth Third Bank's metropolitan Chicago and Northern Indiana networks (...)An immigrant from Korea at age 6, identifies with Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights." "My father died when I was 13; my mother worked double shifts and sacrificed to provide for us. Out of tragedy, there is hope." (Laura Bianchi in Chicago Business)

A young student from Sri Lanka chooses Jane Eyre as her favourite book in The Sunday Times,
一切都是游戏！ posts about Jane Eyre in Chinese, Gerbera Daisy Diaries recommends Syrie James's The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë and A Life in Books has joined Laura's Reviews Brontë Challenge. Finally loverevoluti0n reviews Alice Hoffman's Wuthering Heights-inspired Here on Earth.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights