Heathcliff, role model, will teach you about love

Part of the celebrations of World Book Day yesterday at The Guardian included listing the 10 best teen reads. Jane Eyre made it to number 10 but also:

[Books that will] Teach you about love
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Forever by Judy Blume
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (Imogen Russell Williams)

Stylist looks at the top 10 books most read in the world. Unfortunately, the list doesn't include any work by the Brontës.

Our favourite books include Jane Eyre, Are You There God? It's Me Margaret and The Joy Luck Club. But just because we've read Charlotte Brontë's classic over 100 times, that doesn't mean the rest of the world has.

The South Wales Argus also mentions the celebrations at a local school where

Years 7 to 9 enjoyed Storycraft tutorials on the World Book Day website, had a go at some creative writing using Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights as inspiration and some enjoyed a multimedia lesson on Sherlock Holmes taught by the man himself.

The Daily Mail reviews Sally Cooksoon's Jane Eyre and sums up the production as 'mesmerising' as well as giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

You can watch period drama with celebrity actors on telly, but for guts and passion you can’t beat this long, elemental two-part adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s tome.
Part one, in which our Jane is born, orphaned, beaten, bereaved and jilted, is two and a half hours. Part two, in which her passions boil over and demand impossible satisfaction, is a mere two.
But if Sally Cookson’s thoughtful and insistently intense production takes its time, it’s worth it.
Her show has many strong features, but most remarkable is Benji Bower’s music, which is reminiscent of such diverse sounds as Elgar, Philip Glass, Brian Eno, Portishead and English folk, with big cinema sound inbetween.
More remarkably, it’s played centre stage by a live band, and threaded through with Melanie Marshall’s strange, plangent singing.
The acting enchants as surely as the music. It’s easy to be mesmerised by Madeleine Worrall’s Jane. She is sometimes rigid with defiance and passion.
She squeezes her fists and knits her brow from vexed childhood, through thwarted womanhood all the way to her romantic transfiguration.
Felix Hayes is no slouch either as Rochester.
He may never play Mr Darcy, with his groggy baritone and birds’ nest hair. He is sarcastic and grumpy — but he has a dry wit and you come to love him as much as Craig Edwards, who plays his loyal dog.
Indeed, Edwards nearly steals the show, bounding about the stage and beating the ground with the riding crop that is his tail.
This is, though, an ensemble production coming to life in collective endeavour. It is challenging, needs patience, but this plain Jane Eyre is rich in proud simplicity. (Patrick Marmion)

Bristol 24-7 reviews the production too.

Much of the dialogue from the novel is used in the script however it never seems clunky or archaic, testimony to the undoubted skills and talents of cast and creators. An innovation which works particularly well in this production is the use of music. At times the music is incidental to the action and dialogue and simply expresses the emotions felt by the characters. At others the music is centre stage, none more so than when the outstanding soprano Melanie Marshall soundtracks Jane’s realisation of her feeling for Rochester by singing Noel Coward’s ‘Mad About The Boy’. This synergy of music and action is perfectly realised and controlled throughout the production.
The small cast of ten frequently double up or treble up in the roles, Victorian literature is hardly known for being under populated yet all of the characters portrayed on stage are convincing and beautifully acted. [...]
Unlike previous cinematic or theatrical adaptations of Jane Eyre it is a pleasant change to see Rochester portrayed as a flawed, drily amusing and damaged man rather than a saturnine love god who’s a bit sarcastic and looks good in riding breeches. Felix Hayes brings Rochester to life and is a compelling stage presence and certainly has the ability to play the romantic hero.
Though the undoubted star of the show is Madeleine Worrall who plays Jane Eyre, plays is perhaps too light a description. She inhabits the role and convinces at all times, even when portraying Jane a a baby.
Many Victorian heroines were prissy and annoying do-gooders, thankfully in this production due to Madeleine Worrall’s range and ability as well as the script, at no point does Jane irritate or do you wish she’d just buck her ideas up. Worrall captures Jane’s resilience, sense of justice and quick brain well and convinces you that Jane will invariably survive. Even when Jane is lovelorn and despairing after Rochester declares his interest in the frivolous and avaricious Blanche Ingram, you still believe she will cope with this and grow as a person.
A superb production which should be a must see for anyone who enjoys superb, groundbreaking and imaginative theatre. (Lou Trimby)

Libreriamo (Italy) is inspired by several women authors in anticipation of International Women's Day tomorrow.

Le Sorelle Brönte [sic] – Quando si parla di scrittrici del 1800 è impossibile non citare le tre sorelle Brönte, Charlotte, Emily e Anne. I romanzi che pubblicarono uno ciascuna nel 1847 - “Jane Eyre”, “Cime tempestose” e “Agnes Grey”, sono diventati dei veri e propri classici. Le sorelle sono state accomunate, oltre che dalla vena artistica, anche dalla brevità dell’esistenza: nessuna, infatti, è arrivata alla vecchiaia. (Roberta Turillazzi) (Translation)

Has Heathcliff ever actually been considered a role model? This columnist from The Globe and Mail thinks so:

Let’s consider some terrible role models in literary history: Antigone – lousy role model. Hamlet – very bad role model. Frankenstein – hugely problematic presentation of science. Heathcliff – a brutish failure. Anna Karenina – awful role model. Emma Bovary – absolutely terrible role model. Those are terrible works, all of them: all lacking in empowerment. We should in theory have no need to read them. (Russell Smith)

Papermag describes Marc Jacobs' new ad campaign starring Miley Cyrus as

very Emily Brontë-meets-Annette Funicello, no? (Elizabeth Thompson)

According to The Telegraph and Argus thinks are looking up for the Red House Museum:

The future is looking brighter for a museum threatened with closure.
Council cuts had threatened the future of Red House Museum in Oxford Road, Gomersal, but the establishment of a Friends Group, to help support the historic home, and the recruitment of two new staff look set to secure its future.
The museum, referred to as ‘Briarmains’ in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley, also has a successful gardening team who contributed to last year’s best garden in bloom award. The voluntary group meets from 1pm to 4pm on Tuesdays.
Future events include a Mother’s Day family-themed celebration running from 1pm to 4pm on Sunday, March 30, in the barn and in the museum. Booking is essential.
For more information about the event or to get involved with the museum, call (01274) 335100.

Classic FM lists great classical music inspired by literature. Including Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights:

Movie music legend Bernard Herrmann chose 'Wuthering Heights' as the subject of his only opera. He wrote it between 1943 and 1951, recorded it in full in 1966, but it had to wait until April 2011, the centenary of Herrmann's birth, for a complete theatrical performance. Although largely unknown, the composer's wife said it was 'perhaps the closest to his talent and heart'.

Peace Love Books posts about Wuthering Heights.