A garden and a bitter for Branwell Brontë

The Halifax Courier reports that Sowerby Bridge station is now featuring its Branwell Brontë connection.

Sowerby Bridge now has its very own Bronte Garden after 18 months of hard work and dedication by local volunteers.
The garden was an initiative of the Friends of Sowerby Bridge, with the aim of providing a haven of tranquility for station users and visitors alike, but also to build on the station’s Bronte connection.
After Branwell Brontë’s desire to join the Royal Academy of Art failed to materialise in 1836, he was appointed as Assistant Clerk-in-Charge- a position he held until March 1842.
And to further draw on this connection, the group also planted flowers referenced in the Brontë’s novels. [...]
Local brewery, Owenshaw Mill also brewed a special ‘Branwell Blonde’ bitter.

Yeah, Branwell's highlight of the day would have been that last one thing.

The Guardian's The Book Doctor wonders if children were 'nicer to each other in the old days'. Jane Eyre would of course argue that no, they weren't.

In Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which was once considered a classic novel for adolescence, the orphaned Jane is teased mercilessly by her cruel cousin John Reed with whom she lives. When Jane retaliates her mean aunt terrifies her by locking her in the room in which her uncle died. A harsh punishment and one which causes Jane to faint from the horror of it. (Julia Eccleshare)

The New Indian Express also brings up the novel in an article 'Tracing the Paranormal Tales of the Heart'.

With a strong female readership as well as authorship, the gothic novels delivered on all counts of popular entertainment. Menacing and lofty structures, eerie winds whistling through underground tunnels, virtuous damsels fleeing in distress from profligate male characters, secret doors, hidden passageways, supernatural elements, prophecies, corruption, decay, madness and tragedy were the typical tropes that defined this type of fiction. While the regressive nature of punishment/rewards for the virtuous was highlighted in some books, the subversive and feminist content of others like Jane Eyre was also equally lauded. There were the shy and delicate heroines like Isabella in Walpole's classic whose character was etched as tragic suffering figure. She was: ‘the gentle maid, whose hapless tale’ was recounted in the ‘melancholy pages’ of the book. She was also the yelling, shrieking madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre who was appropriated by the 21st century critics as a beacon of female sexuality. (Diya Kohli)

The New Indian Express also recommends reading:

While almost any reading will improve your mind, in a world where there is too much to  do, you must be selective in the books you read. And so, I suggest you spend much of your time reading what Thoreau called The Heroic Books - those books that contain “the noblest recorded thoughts of man.”
Let your mind drink deeply from the works of the great philosophers, such as Epictetus and Confucius. Study the poems of the wisest poets, such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Emily Dickinson and John Keats, and the novels of Leo Tolstoy, Hermann Hesse and the Brontës. Read the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa. (Robin Sharma)

It has been announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their second child. The Duchess of Cambridge is again suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum and that always seems to gather a mention or two of Charlotte at least. From Parent Dish:

Jane Eyre author Charlotte Brontë died during pregnancy after suffering prolonged periods of nausea, and some biographers believe it was dehydration and malnutrition related to the condition that killed her. (Rebecca Gillie)

The Journal has a blunder with a male chauvinistic twist:

The campaign is the brainchild of Youth Training Academy managing director Rob Earnshaw, who has himself thrived in the creative world while remaining in his home region.
Originally a casting director, Earnshaw has been responsible for finding talent such as Matt Milne for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse and James Howson for Andrew Arnold’s Wuthering Heights. (Robert Gibson)

Based on the novel of the same name by Emil Brontë, we suppose.

A reader of Stuff praises Wuthering Heights. Livraddict writes in French about Jane Eyre while Tom Ruffles discusses the 'fairy story elements' in the novel.