Lucky for the Brontës

The New Zealand Herald reviews the novel The Word Ghost by Christine Paice:

Nicky Pellegrino likes the Brontë-esque girl in this ghostly tale of young romance. (...)
It is summer 1973 and Rebecca is nearly 16, an English vicar's daughter who is in the throes of her first serious crush. Dave, Dave, Dave; she can barely think of anyone else. A bookish girl, obsessed with the writing of the Brontë sisters, in particular Jane Eyre, Rebecca is busy growing up, being moody and bickering with her sisters.
To her joy, she gets together with Dave but just when things are turning hot and heavy, Rebecca's father accepts a transfer to another parish, a small Buckinghamshire village called Brightley. It's a sleepy rural place, no streetlights or traffic, not quite Brontë country but sort of, and there isn't much there to interest a 16-year-old girl who's recently experienced a sexual awakening.
Rebecca starts having weird dreams. There's a tapping at her window and a figure kneeling beside her bed, bathed in a curious silver light.
This figure turns out to be a sad, poetry writing ghost called Algernon Keats (second cousin to the great poet himself) who is living in her wardrobe and dresses like a character straight out of a Brontë novel.

The Yorkshire Post publishes an article about the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway (KWVR):

Tom, from Bingley, is only 20 and the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway’s youngest fireman, having just passed the stringent exams that the role requires. He’s studying mechanical engineering at Huddersfield University, and the steam locomotive that depends on his hard graft to make its stately way through Brontë country to the waves and smiles of passers-by is a hands-on example of what his chosen subject achieved in a bygone age. (...)
“We’re always trying to think of things to keep it fresh,” said Roger. “We’re lucky here to have the Brontë connection. We rely on day trippers, so we tend to run all year round. (Andrew Vine)

Also in the same newspaper an interview with the actor Keith Barron:

Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/performer.
Like many thousands of others, I have a fascination with the Brontës, and how those remarkable women could be so inventive and imaginative given the place that they came from. On a bad weather day it’s bleak and horrible – perhaps that made them want to escape into literature?

St James Plain Dealer mentions about a recent talk by the author Julie Klassen at the local library:

On her website, Klassen writes that her work will appeal to those with a predilection for romance, British accents, Charlotte Brontë’s famed “Jane Eyre,” or the works in Jane Austen’s cannon. She said Tuesday that, despite the comps with Austen’s work due to their similar settings, she didn’t read Austen until later in life. But, she did grow up fascinated by England and that general time period, with books like “The Secret Garden” and “Jane Eyre” turning her into an unabashed Anglophile. (Ryan Anderson)

Sarah Freeman remembers her experiences at the Endinburgh Fringe Festival in The Yorkshire Post:

One friend says he always picks a theme. The other year he decided to only see performances which involved nudity; the next he only watched plays by all-male companies. Jane Eyre, he says, was particularly interesting.

We think that Sarah's friend has mixed his Brontës. The all-male production was a Wuthering Heights one, which by the way returns to the Fringe this year.

Courier Mail is concerned about Facebook quizzes, why does anybody do them?

Anyway, I don’t know why I do these quizzes, nobody does, but I suspect we all do them because they appeal to our vanity, to our insatiable knowledge for information about ourselves, and a sneaking, yet undeniable suspicion that we are, in fact, Jane Eyre. (Frances Whiting)

Rereading Jane Eyre (the blog of Luccia Hall, author of the Eyre Hall Trilogy) has some recent interesting posts like this one about the books Jane Eyre read at Gateshead Hall; Something-Beautiful begins the second week of the Jane Eyre June.