Haworth and the other Haworth

The Telegraph and Argus features the street artist who created the Brontë sisters stencil in Haworth.

A street artist has created a life-sized stencil of the Brontë sisters riding a bike - in celebration of the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire.
The work, by a mysterious Bristol-based artist known as Stewy, is on the side of Haworth Fire Station. The Brontë siblings lived in Haworth.
Stewy, who has offered to donate half of the money made from sales of the print to The Fire Fighters Charity, said: "I wanted to give something back to The Fire Fighters Charity as a thank you for allowing me to use Haworth Fire Station as a canvas and I really hope the locals and visitors to the area enjoy the stencil.
“I have been doing this subject matter for 20 years, British identity as a theme, but I’ve been doing stencilling since 2007.”
The artwork is part of a series of images of musicians, artists and writers who have popped up in the places with which they are associated across Yorkshire.
Stewy said: “It works on so many levels. People go to Haworth because they know of the Brontës. Kids can graffiti but might not be good at English or be a bit troubled. You might find some kids who might pick up Wuthering Heights because they have looked at street art and there’s a picture of the Brontës.
“I like to be spontaneous. There’s something quite nice about going to do it, leaving it and letting it go so it belongs to everybody."

The Telegraph and Argus also has an article on Haworth... on the other side of the pond.

Haworth needs help to expand its library – but not Haworth in West Yorkshire!
A representative for a library in the small suburb of Haworth in the North American state of New Jersey, has broadcast an appeal to locations and businesses which are named after this iconic village.
Beth Potter, co-president of the Friends of Haworth New Jersey Library, said: "We've begun construction on an expansion to our library.
"I'm approaching any entity that has the name Haworth associated with it, so therefore might have some Haworth pride.
"We do know for a fact that our town of 3,000 people is named for Haworth, England. One of the financiers who helped bring a railroad through our town in 1872 was himself a novelist and a fan of the Brontë sisters, and so he named our little station stop Haworth."
Councillor John Huxley, chairman of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council, said: "I'm happy to put their appeal to our council's finance committee.
"We're happy to talk to them and further our links."
People can visit haworth.bccls.org to find out more about Haworth New Jersey's library.

The Atlantic discusses where genius comes from.

Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, took a much more rigorous approach to the topic. In his 1869 book, Hereditary Genius, Galton used careful documentation—including detailed family trees showing the more than 20 eminent musicians among the Bachs, the three eminent writers among the Brontës, and so on—to demonstrate that genius appears to have a strong genetic component. He was also the first to explore in depth the relative contributions of nature and nurture to the development of genius. (Nancy Andreasen)

This Roanoke Times reviewer has written a disclaimer on religion and books.

I intended to do a formal review of the book, but when I read the back, I glanced down and saw its categories: fiction, romance, Christian. I panicked slightly, because while I'm not areligious, religion really isn't my subject. It interests me from historical and cultural perspectives, but I consider religion to be a personal, private subject. Even writing this blog post is making me uncomfortable.
Perhaps an example is in order, because I don't want anyone to think I drop a book the second it mentions anything to do with religion. I'm all right reading, say, "Jane Eyre" in which God, prayer and religion play important parts, but are not starring roles. They are woven into the fabric of Jane's culture and are dealt with as matter-of-factly as I'd expect from a 19th-century novel. There is a historical aspect to this, too; Christianity permeated society much more back then, and I assume Charlotte Brontë assumed there was no chance her novel would offend anyone from a religious standpoint because that's just how life was. (Suzanne Wardle)

However, the Little Rock Books Examiner dwells on the Gothic aspect of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

One of the most popular Gothic novels of all-time, the beloved Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, features Edward Rochester, who appears to be a mild anti-hero early on because of his brutish manner and surly disposition but as the story unfolds, Rochester is driven to immoral and shockingly deceptive behavior. However, when the reader discovers how tortured the character is, as a result of burdens beyond his control, it is easy to sympathize with him and understand his actions. Creating sympathy for an anti-hero is a very effective way to endear the reader to him. [...]
It is almost impossible to talk about anti-heroes of Gothic fiction without mentioning Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Although the very conflicted heroine, Cathy, is far from the killers or unscrupulous criminals featured in many such books, her greed and arrogance destroys Heathcliff’s life and her own. The fact that she suffers so greatly and meets with a tragic end makes her naturally sympathetic to readers. The price she pays for her actions utilizes another highly effective technique for dealing with anti-heroes: punishment and repentance. (Jennifer Lafferty)

Misiones Cuatro (Argentina) mourns the death of Spanish writer Ana María Matute and describes her as a Brontëite.

En aquellos años, se deleitaba con «La recherche» de Proust y las «Cumbres borrascosas» de Bronte, que leyó a los 17 años. Todavía conservaba el libro en su biblioteca. Colección La Nave: «Se cae a trozos, no se puede ni tocar… A veces pienso: ‘¿Para qué escribir? ¡Que escriban otros! ¡A mí lo que me gusta es leer!» (Translation)

10 things writers can learn from Jane Eyre on Helping Writers Become Authors. Bring My Books posts about the novel and  The Phantom Paragrapher reviews Always Emily by Michaela MacColl. The Brontë Parsonage Twitter asks about your favourite Brontë quotes.