Brontë Spirit working

Very good news for the future of the Old School Room in Haworth. Keighley News reports:

An initiative to restore a historic Haworth building has received a £2,500 boost.
Worth Valley ward councillors have allocated the money from the ward investment fund to support Brontë Spirit, which is campaigning to ensure the long-term future of the Old School Room.
The Church Street building, which requires major repairs and renovations, was built by the Reverend Patrick Brontë.
The money was made available by councillors Glen Miller, Rebecca Poulsen and Russell Brown.
Coun Miller said: “We were keen to support this project as it still has a long way to go. We’ve given it some start-up costs.”
Averil Kenyon, chairman of Brontë Spirit, said she and her colleagues were delighted with this financial backing. We are overwhelmed, it was just so timely,” she said.
She added that the money would help with the costs of drawing up a business plan, needed as part of an application for further funding.
Her group has staged a pair of open days to give local business people and community leaders a chance to see what potential the property has as a venue.

The Morning Star reviews the latest novel by Joolz Denby, Wild Thing:

This carefully plotted structure is matched by well-crafted prose that revels in unusual language, "tatterdemalion" being a favoured noun and Denby is equally at home in referencing James Blunt as she is Wuthering Heights and Thomas Gray.  (Susan Darlington)

The Guardian reviews the first novels by Shiva Naipaul:

Writing is not, generally speaking, a family profession. Law, engineering, even dentistry, are known to be taken up by siblings. But writing and the artistic temperament constitute a turn in the family's fortunes, as Thomas Mann so vividly showed us in Buddenbrooks. Yet there are instances of siblings producing serious additions to the realm of letters. Those families must have been quite odd in their intensities, you think; the Brontës come to mind. (...)
To these pairings and constellations must be added VS Naipaul and his short-lived but immensely gifted brother Shiva, born in a country remote enough for the Brontës to have daydreamed of. (Amit Chaudhury)

The Guardian also reviews the new book by Louise Rennison (author of Withering Tights): A Midsummer Tights Dream:

Tallulah Casey is an ebullient, chaotic Irish girl and she's fizzing with excitement because she's returning to the perfect school – Dother Hall performing arts college, a crumbling mansion in Brontë country, where the teachers are engagingly barmy and there are endless opportunities to snog the boys at the school next door.  (Kate Saunders)

The Financial Times goes on the The Dark Peak route in Derbyshire in the company of the writer Marina Lewycka:

We leave on a sandy track to begin one of her favourite walks: from the moorland of Stanage Edge to the valley village of Hathersage, taking in an 18th-century packhorse trail, North Lees Hall (Charlotte Brontë’s inspiration for the Thornfield Hall of Jane Eyre), the grave of Little John, he of Robin Hood’s Merry Men, and afternoon tea.  (...)

The trail leads us down the valley. Hedges replace drystone walls; grass replaces heather. North Lees Hall, built in the grey millstone grit of the Edge, emerges square from trees, a blunt tower on top. It was built in the late 16th century by Catholic landowners, the Jessops; later tenants were the Eyre family. We approach the heavy wooden door of the Hall, now a holiday let. “If you wanted to be brave you could stand on a chair and peer through a window,” she whispers. Wobbling on a garden chair, I see comfy fittings – no Jane, Rochester or mad first wife. Lewycka contemplates the tower, and Brontë’s mind. “Imagine seeing that and thinking, ‘Ahh – mad woman, locked up, sets the whole place on fire.’ (...) 
Heading for tea and talking religion, we pass the vicarage where Charlotte Brontë stayed (between inspiring walks). (Julian Flanagan)

The Post-Crescent talks about book clubs:

In addition, they mix it up by doing special activities such as watching a movie related to a book they have read or holding a tea party after reading "Jane Eyre."  (Linda Dums)

ABC (Spain) compares Emilia Pardo Bazán with the Brontës:

[L]o que nos interesa es que la Pardo Bazán, como las Brontë, fue precoz, precocísima, y ya a los trece años escribía su primera novela, «Aficiones peligrosas», que ahora se publica íntegramente por primera vez.  (Manuel De La Fuente) (Translation)

El Mundo (Spain) quotes the Argentinian writer Gabriela Cabezón Cámara praising Minae Muzumura's A Real Novel:

Para Cabezón Cámara, "'Una novela real' es una magnífica reescritura de Cumbres Borrascosas", otra historia sobre una familia disfuncional.  (Rebeca Yanke) (Translation)

The same newspaper interviews Andrew Stanton, director of John Carter who says something quite... unexpected:

Asegura Stanton que la película oscila entre el aire mítico de las películas de romanos y el trasfondo romántico y trágico de 'Cumbres borrascosas'... (Carlos Fresneda) (Translation)

The film directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani are interviewed in La Nación (Argentina) and Vittorio says something also unexpected:

Mientras sostiene su inseparable gorra con la mano, Vittorio dice que se siente Laurence Olivier en Cumbres borrascosas.  (Néstor Tirri) (Translation)

Telérama (France) interviews Augustin Trapenard, host of France Culture's Le Carnet d'Or and Brontë scholar; Novinky (Czech Republic) reviews April Lindner's Jane; ХайВей (in Russian) gives a happy ending to Villette; Интерфакс-Запад (Belarus) and Новые Известия (Russia) review Wuthering Heights 2011; The Dover-New Philadelphia Times Reporter recommends the Brontë night on TCM;  inklings press, movfreak (in Indonesian), Inkwell Inspirations and By Star Filmes (in Portuguese) reviews Jane Eyre 2011; Bridge to my mind discusses natural imagery on Jane Eyre; LadyLavinia 1932's Blog reviews Jane Eyre 1983; Reading Extensively reviews The Flight of Gemma Hardy.

We have to add one more competition to the list we published a couple of days ago: Cine-Vue (DVD of Wuthering Heights 2011, closes March 29). And finally, a hilarious parody video by La Shea Delaney and Annabelle Quezada where they remix Jay-Z & Kanye West's Niggas in Paris: Bitches in Bookshops. If you listen carefully you will catch the Brontë reference.