"Erudite, brilliant and good fun"

The Telegraph and Argus has published an obituary of Robert Barnard:

A former chairman of the Bronte Society, author and compiler of  A Brontë Encyclopaedia, has died.
Dr Robert Barnard was also a prolific crime writer as well as being a “mine of information” on Haworth’s most famous residents.
He died on Friday at Grove Court Nursing Home in Leeds, at 76.
Along with his wife Louise, he compiled A Brontë Encyclopaedia in 2007, referred to by the society as “a cornerstone for modern Bronte scholarship.”
He was chair of the society twice and also wrote a book on Emily Brontë’s life.
Essex born and Leeds based, Mr Barnard spent lots of time at the Brontë Parsonage and around Haworth.
He started writing crime novels in the 1970s, writing over 40 books and short stories and receiving the Cartier Diamond Dagger award in 2003 for services to crime fiction.
Marcel Berlins, critic at The Times, called Mr Barnard: “One of our most original and versatile bloodspillers.”
The Brontë Society’s Richard Wilcocks said: “Well known in the Brontë Society, he was a professor, a scholar and an award-winning crime writer.”

It was us who described A Brontë Encyclopedia like that, although we must obviously add that we are in no way affiliated with the Brontë Society.

Sally McDonald, Chair of the Brontë Society does write about him on the Brontë Society website:

Members of the Brontë Society worldwide will be deeply saddened to hear of Bob's death. Dr. Robert Barnard, known to everyone as Bob, was greatly liked and much admired sharing with members a lifelong enthusiasm for the lives and works of the Brontës. Twice chairman of Council and a frequent contributor to Brontë Studies, author of a fine biography of Emily Brontë and co-author with his wife, Louise, of a Brontë Encyclopaedia, Bob has made a significant contribution to the Society and to our knowledge and understanding of the Brontës.
A distinguished academic, Bob also enjoyed an internationally successful career as a crime writer and if you asked him how the next book was coming along he would modestly reply "seems to be going ok" but he always seemed more interested to check how life was trundling along for you too. Bob had that rare gift of being able to chat happily and easily with anyone and was as much at home on a 48 seater coach visting Brontë sites with members as he was delivering a scholarly lecture to a packed hall or accepting accolades for his fiction writing.
The first time I met Bob we chatted about writing and talked about the art of writing short stories. He mentioned that he'd just written something and would let me have a copy if I'd be interested. True to his word it arrived in the post by the end of the week with a note asking if I would mind letting him know if I thought it was any good. From that chat about short stories began a friendship I came to treasure but it was years before I learned just who he was!
I count myself privileged to have enjoyed the incalculable benefit of Bob's friendship, support and wisdom these past years. A man who loved literature and music Bob was always himself and that self was erudite, brilliant and good fun.

Yahoo! Lifestyle (UK and Ireland) talks to Richard and Judy about their search for a new best-selling author.

Need more inspiration? Judy picks Jane Eyre as her perfect book, while Richard waxes lyrical about Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, his ‘desert island book’. (Kim Hookem-Smith)

The Guardian Books Blog wonders which classic novels could have received 'the Fifty Shades of Grey treatment'. (Meaning by their own authors, not by current writers, as some of them already have).

You can imagine a modern-day Charlotte Brontë writing embarrassing confessional scenes about masturbation, Lena Dunham-style, or a bit like Sheila Heti – and not understanding why other people found it all a bit much. But then she'd provide some good, loving rumpy-pumpy when Jane Eyre is reunited with Mr Rochester, to keep everyone happy. Emily Brontë paints a vivid and convincing picture of overpowering sexual attraction in Wuthering Heights, but her apparently virginal imagination might have faltered at the final description. (Moira Redmond)

Entertainment (Ireland) claims that Jane Eyre 2011 is one of '10 period drama films you need to see before you die'.

8. Jane Eyre (2011)
Period dramas are, by their very nature, over the top. The costumes, the designs, the acting - everything is supposed to be over-the-top. So to take one of the most famous period novels - namely, Jane Eyre - and strip it back to the bone is pretty ballsy. And yet, this interpretation of Jane Eyre completely works. Michael Fassbender, in an underrated performance, plays Mr. Rochester. Closed off and monosyllabic, he hires a young woman to act as an au pair for his children. The title character, played by Mia Wasikowska, is sent to his draughty, dust-ridden home to see to the children. Fassbender demonstrates here why he's the greatest living Irish actor of our generation, by infusing a scene with genuine emotion with a single look or glance. The director, Cory Fukunaga, previously worked on crime drama Sin Nombre and will be seen again on Matthew McConaughey's HBO drama, True Detective. (Brian Lloyd)

CNet (Australia) features Ubisoft's new role-playing game Child of Light.

The story was developed nearly a year ago, in October, starting with Aurora. "We imagined a young girl who could fly. Then I began developing her personality," Yohalem told CNET Australia. "Since all the dialogue in the game rhymes, I wanted her to speak using interesting diction, to have a broad lexicon. So, at that point, the daughter of a duke from 1895 Austria came into the mix. She's mischievous but grounded in her time, restrained but precocious, struggling to become something new. She's classic but evolving into something different. She has the aura of Jane Eyre as a young child: Jane at the beginning of the book."
For a world that's used to the fainting ladies of Perrault and Disney, who sit in the background waiting to be rescued, it's a refreshing twist — for those who might not understand the reference, one of the key parts of the character of Jane Eyre is her refusal to be subdued by those who would crush her and her absolute refusal to depend on anyone to make her destiny for her. (Michelle Starr)

More software today, as the Guardian features a 'Minecraft map of Britain created by Ordnance Survey'.

It starts with the OS's head office in Southampton, through which Minecraft players can enter and explore the geographically-accurate 3D representation of Great Britain.
Users can then recreate real-life man-made features on the map, such as Stonehenge or the Shard in London, iconic landmarks from fiction such as Hogwarts school or Wuthering Heights, or construct their own buildings and monuments with their imagination the only limitation. (Samuel Gibbs and Keith Stuart)

The Grimsby Telegraph writes about a recent council meeting where

By the time the evening was done, Charlotte Brontë, Nye Bevan, Aristotle, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan had all been quoted.

Wiadomości24 (Poland) reviews the biography Charlotte Brontë i jej siostry śpiące. YourGlenRoseTX features a local student discussing Jane Eyre. No Map Provided has put together a look based on Jane Eyre. Examiner has a review of Wuthering Heights and Rosie's Period Journal posts about the 1939 adaptation of the novel. Kate Bush Radio Show shares a poem inspired by Kate Bush's song Wuthering Heights. PaperBlog (in Spanish) has uploaded many literary-inspired stamps, including one of Charlotte Brontë. Yesterday the Brontë Parsonage Facebook page marked Branwell Brontë's death anniversary by sharing his funeral card.