Not knowing your Austen from your Bronte just isn't cool

The Citizen (South Africa) reviews Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, giving it 2 out of 10 stars.

If the original story had been told in the way Arnold has imagined it here, it wouldn’t be classic literature – it would simply be a piece of overblown fluff dreamed up by a bitter, lonely woman. Wuthering Heights is an intense story, and its characters are never laugh-a-minute  types, however it’s adapted. But the filmmaking tics that endeared Arnold to arthouse audiences lose their effect here, making a long, slow film seem annoyingly self-indulgent. (Bruce Dennill)

The Baby Lit series of children's board books, including both the new Wuthering Heights and last year's Jane Eyre, receives much better feedback from SheKnows.

Review numbers with Pride & Prejudice or count along with Dracula, Jane Eyre or Romeo & Juliet. You can even teach weather concepts with Wuthering Heights. It’s a multi-layered approach to learning, and you’ll love hearing your little one say words like “Mr. Darcy,” “Pemberley” or “Dr. Van Helsing.” (Elizabeth Weiss McGolerick)

Coincidentally, Stuff (New Zealand) features the use of comics and graphic novels in classrooms:

The school was using them more as they connected text with pictures, which was how children learned to read. They helped children struggling with reading and also appealed to students who were competent.
"They tend to target boys but they are across the board for all readers."
She said they offered a mixed diet of reading as did newspapers, magazines or a Brontë novel. (Esther Ashby-Coventry)

Allehanda (Sweden) reviews a novel with a clear Brontë influence:

Ingrid Hedström, journalist på DN, fick Svenska Deckarakademins pris för bästa debut 2008. Läs om "Svarta korpar över Villette", hennes femte deckare om Martine Poirot.
Sedan 25 år är Martine Poirot lyckligt gift med en professor i medeltidshistoria som heter Thomas Héger. Villette är en fiktiv stad men ändå känd från Charlotte Brontës tredje och sista roman Villette, som utspelar sig i den av Charlotte Brontë påhittade staden Villette. (Lars Landström) (Translation)

Wide Sargasso Sea makes it into 'Staff Picks: Flavorwire’s Favorite Cultural Things This Week'.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
After reading fellow Flavorwire intern Chloe’s great article about Jean Rhys at The Paris Review, I decided to introduce myself to Rhys’ work by reading her final and best known novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, which tells the story of how the wife of Jane Eyre‘s Mr. Rochester, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, came to be the mad woman in the attic. It’s poignant and incredibly sad, and perfect for anyone who’s ever been unsatisfied with a character being dismissed as simply “crazy” or “bad.” — (Julia Pugachevsky, Editorial Intern)

Seven Days reviews the film The Place Beyond the Pines:

Cianfrance’s story just keeps spiraling out from there, aspiring to the multigenerational reach of Wuthering Heights or East of Eden. (Margot Harrison)

The Litchfield County Times features a local 15-year-old writer.

Think of the Brontë sisters, living in the silence of their father’s sparsely furnished Victorian parsonage in Haworth in northern England. There were few distractions for the young girls, so they engaged their imaginations in creating fantasy worlds, drawing on their meager experiences to create rich novels about their mid-Victorian society. Emily went on to produce “Wuthering Heights,” while Charlotte wrote “Jane Eyre.”
Fast-forward to the highly charged 21st-century, where hardly a moment is allowed for solitary reflection, for exploring the inner world of the mind. American children are constantly stimulated by electronic media—unless their parents take control. That appears to be just what has happened in the Yerks home in Sharon, where Todd and Marilyn Yerks have put a limit on the amount of time their daughter, Rachel, can have access to television.
The result? Rachel Yerks, a 15-year-old ninth-grade student at Indian Mountain School, fills her leisure hours just as the Brontës did—by writing. (Kathryn Boughton)

My Daily has some tips for Victoria Beckham, one of which is

Read a book. Back in 2005, Mrs Beckham was simply too busy to read anything. We're guessing that's still the case, but there are a LOT of literary classics she's missing out on. Plus, not knowing your Austen from your Brontë just isn't cool. (Katie Jones)

The posts on James Taylor continue over at The Brontë Sisters. Twins and Books writes in Portuguese about Wuthering Heights and Girl with a Pen and a Dream recommends it among other classics.