Blanche Ingram's 'fresh image'

The Independent reviews briefly Juliet Barker's revised and updated edition of The Brontës:

Every age has its Brontë interpreters from Mrs Gaskell and Winifred Gerin to Jane Sellars and Lucasta Miller. It was Juliet Barker's 1994 biography, however, that most dramatically reclaimed the sisters as flesh-and-blood human beings – giving wild romantic Emily, love-sick Anne, and "poor" Charlotte long needed makeovers.
Now revised and updated, Barker's new edition takes into account important new developments in Brontë studies - in particular throwing new light on Branwell's juvenilia, and re-dating key manuscripts.
Yet more touching are the few pieces of original material to emerge, including a letter from Charlotte describing her wedding dress, and a note from the Bishop of Ripon comforting Patrick Brontë on the death of his sixth and last child. (Emma Hagestadt)

EDIT: The same review appears in The Belfast Telegraph.

Also in The Independent Imogen Poots discusses her role as Blanche Ingram in Jane Eyre 2011:

"Obviously, in the book she's presented as pretty conniving and is extremely hostile towards Jane," explains Poots. "But I think Cary wanted to give her a fresh image. And the way that we've explored her character is by presenting her as someone quite innocent and generally flabbergasted as to why this man doesn't want to marry her. Also Cary has made it much younger, having Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska as the two leads. And it's much more sinister than any other adaptation." (James Mottram)

We are quite intrigued now actually.

And more Jane Eyre on another format as Playbill's Today in Theatre History mentions Jane Eyre the Musical:

[10 December] 2000 Opening night of Jane Eyre, the musical based on the Brontë novel. Critics say it may have opened too late in the cycle of operatic musicals, but producers keep it running, mainly at a loss, for 209 performances through the 2001 Tony Awards. Leading lady Marla Schaffel earns a Tony nomination and a cult following, but no Tony Awards. (Robert Viagas)

NPR quotes from Hazel Rossotti's Fire: Servant, Scourge, and Enigma:

For the novelist, fire provides dramatic incidents on which to peg his plot: for the death of Grace Poole in Jane Eyre[.] (Oliver Sacks)

We are pretty sure he means Bertha, though. And anyway Grace Poole was implicitly saved by Rochester when

he went up to the attics when all was burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped them down himself (Jane Eyre, ch. XXXVI)

The Peoria Times suggests a trip to the library:

With the holidays here, why not come to the library and check out some of the timeless classics that you read in the past. Time stands still when you read a Dickens, Twain or Brontë. (David Hunenberg)

The Mirror says about tonight's episode of Peep Show,

Reading books doesn't really fit into that category so watching him grapple with Wuthering Heights must be one of the few times that Emily Brontë's novel has been the cue for eye-watering laughter. (Jane Simon)

This was already mentioned a few days ago by The Times. 

Associated Content has 'A Brief History of Traditional Zombie Films' which lists I Walked with a Zombie. Caeia March has uploaded to YouTube a promotional video of her book Letters to Charlotte. Welcome to my book collection writes in Swedish about Jane Eyre and From Books to Movies and Back Again posts about the 1983 adaptation of the novel. Dreaming of Books reviews April Lindner's Jane. And Ergofiction discusses Wuthering Heights.

EDIT: And last but not least, let's not forget an alert for tomorrow December 11:

The Brontë Society. S E Group Christmas dinner at the Strand Palace Hotel in London.

And another for today, December 10:

Academy of Notre Dame (Villanova, PA)
April Lindner, the best-selling author of Jane, visits the Academy of Notre Dame’s Connelly Library on Friday, December 10, to read portions of her book and talk to students about the writing process.

Categories: Alert, Biography, Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wuthering Heights