“I’m glad you’ve read the book, I think it is so beautiful."

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Express fills us in on the background on the background on the lyrics of Wuthering Heights handwritten by Kate Bush and auctioned a few days ago.

Singer Kate Bush made a teenage boy’s dream come true when she sent him this signed photograph and a handwritten copy of the lyrics to Wuthering Heights.
Thirty six years later, the memorabilia has earned her now middleaged fan almost £7,000.
Kate was just 19 when, in 1978, she replied to a letter from a 14-year-old known only as David, asking to know the lyrics to her number one hit of that year.
Her reply, written in blue ballpoint on a sheet of paper from the Hotel Intercontinental in Paris, said: “Dear David, thank you very much for writing to me – I’m thrilled that you want to know the words of my single.” She adds in reference to her influence for the song, the novel by Emily Brontë: “I’m glad you’ve read the book, I think it is so beautiful. God Bless, love Kate Bush xxx.”
The lyrics were on the back and the photograph was signed: “To David, keep smiling. Love Kate Bush xxx.”
After the items were sold in London this week by TracksAuction.com, David said: “At the time, the song was the most extraordinary thing I had ever heard and I was utterly mesmerised by her performance when she appeared on Top Of The Pops.
“I was in love with the song so I wrote to EMI Records for the lyrics. Much to my amazement a few weeks later I received a reply from the lady herself.
“She had not only handwritten all the lyrics for me but also included a letter and a signed photograph of herself – an image that, at the time, was this teenage boy’s dream and made me the envy of all my friends.
“Even now, after all these years, I’m still amazed by the effort she went to in sending this to me.” (Chris Riches)

But clearly not amazed enough to keep him from selling it.

Keighley News has another article on the possibility of a wind farm in Brontë Country:

An applicant wants to install two wind turbines on 18-metre masts at an Oxenhope Farm.
The proposals for Old Oxenhope Farm, Oxenhope Lane, are due to go before councillors at the Keighley and Shipley Area Planning Panel today. (Nov 27)
Bradford Council has received 11 letters of objection to the plans and seven letters of support.
One of the objectors includes the Brontë Society, which has argued: "In an empty landscape even small turbines have a dominating effect, tending to change perceptions of scale, and the movement of the blades draws the eye, making them impossible to ignore." [...]
Worth Valley ward councillor Rebecca Poulsen said: "It's a difficult application. I'm sympathetic to the farm because in order to win contracts they have to prove their green credentials.
"It's quite a competitive process and they have to show that a certain percentage of their power comes from renewable sources.
"They have made the proposed turbines smaller than they were in previous applications.
"However, this is sensitive because of the location, the views of the landscape, and the links to the Brontës.
"I referred this to the planning panel because I felt it wouldn't be fair to just leave it to a planning officer's decision. I wanted it to be heard in public where all parties can make their views known." (Miran Rahman)

The Illinois Times' 'advice goddess' replies to the following query:

In social situations, my boyfriend will often pretend to have read books I know he hasn’t. He doesn’t just fake it with some casual “Yeah, I read that.” He will try to say something deep and philosophical, but can end up not making much sense. He’s too smart to need to do this. Is there something I can say to persuade him to stop? –Embarrassed Your boyfriend’s just lucky nobody’s suspected he’s lying about what he’s read and tried to trip him up – maybe with “It’s like Heathcliff wandering the moors searching for Cathy after she was abducted by aliens!” or “What a relief when Romeo rushed Juliet to the hospital and they pumped her stomach!” (Amy Alkon)

But then again, like The Daily Star says,

While English majors are obliged to read more than students pursuing other degrees, it is silly to expect them to have read all of Dickens' or Austen's works. It is also unfair to assume that all students of literature love Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice (which are not written by the same author, by the way). (Nifath Karim Chowdhury)

BeliefNet's Commonsense Christianity mentions Agnes Grey:

Agnes Grey is a novel by Anne Brontë, the youngest of the three Brontë sisters (think Emily, and Wuthering Heights; and Charlotte, with Jane Eyre), that follows a young woman as she serves as governess to a series of horrendously atrocious children. Like her sisters, Anne made observations about the religious — Christian — environment of her day, and this passage describes her character Agnes’s assessment of the local rector, or pastor:
“His favourite subjects were church discipline, rites and ceremonies, apostolic succession, the duty of reverence and obedience to the clergy, the atrocious criminality of dissent, the absolute necessity of observing all the forms of godliness, the reprehensible presumption of individuals who attempted to think for themselves in matters connected with religion, or to be guided by their own interpretations of Scripture . . . supporting his maxims and exhortations throughout with quotations from the Fathers: with whom he appeared to be far better acquainted than with the Apostles and Evangelists, and whose importance he seemed to consider at least equal to theirs.” [...]
Published in 1847, this paragraph — so contemporaneous that it’s astonishing — is a sober awakening that the pressure to conform, obey, comply, acquiesce, and passively accept what we are told has been around a long time, and the message of 167 years ago is still being preached today, in Jesus’s name. (Carolyn Henderson)

For Noche de cine (Spain), Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and Thomas Hardy seem to be all the same:

La clásica novela romántica de Thomas Hardy ‘Lejos del mundanal ruido (Far from the madding crowd)’ vuelve a estrenar una versión cinematográfica de la mano del realizador danés Thomas Vinterberg (‘La caza’). Carey Mulligan es la protagonista en esta ocasión al más puro estilo de Jane Austen o Charlotte Brontë. (Javier Bragado) (Translation)

Manchester Evening News features the upcoming performances of LipService at Elizabeth Gaskell's newly-restored home.

Head down to LipService to Elizabeth Gaskell on the weekend of December 5-6 and, if the company’s previous dips into the life of Elizabeth Gaskell are anything to go by, you’ll find the famous writer frequenting with all the successful women and provocateurs of the time.
Perhaps taking tea with pals Charlotte Brontë and Marie Stopes, or staging protests with the Pankhurst family? All that would build on the company’s Hysterical History Show, “a whacky whirlwind tour of Britain’s female national treasures”. (Sarah Walters)

Also in Manchester, The Manchester Review talks about the Peter McMaster's Wuthering Heights adaptation:

In all honesty, I don’t really know where to start. That’s partly because this is one of the most absurd and surreal things I’ve ever seen on a stage. But it’s also because it kind of blew my mind. From the moment you step into the room to see a grown man trotting around the stage and making horse noises, you know this isn’t going to be your standard adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel. But I doubt that, even at that point, anybody predicted the hour that was to follow.
One difficulty in reviewing this play is that much of its magic comes from the element of surprise, so I’m going to try my best not to ruin that for future audiences. One thing I can definitely say is that this is no ordinary Wuthering Heights. If you go there expecting to make notes for your GCSEs or to hear the story of Cathy and Heathcliff in its full and brutal beauty, you might be disappointed. If you go with an open mind, willing to laugh, and as a fan of Kate Bush, you won’t.
This isn’t just the madcap and irreverent comedy that it first appears, though. Despite the bizarre antics, the bawdy humour, and the downright silliness, this is a play with extremely important underlying messages. (Fran Slater)

The Brontë Parsonage Facebook page links to a clip of Arts Officer Jenna Holmes speaking on BBC Radio Leeds. Geeks Unleashed reviews Wuthering Heights. On Michael Jayston Tumblr we can read an interview with Sorcha Cusack, Jane Eyre in the 1973 TV adaptation:

1. When did you read “Jane Eyre” for the first time and do you remember your first impressions of the novel?”
I’m afraid Wuthering Heights made a far more memorable impression though I remember most vividly the early chapters in J.Eyre: the cruelty of the Reeds and the death of Helen Burns. The fact that I read it when I was about 11 no doubt accounts for this.
2. How did you get the role of Jane? And how did you prepare for the role? Did you watch any previous performances of the character?
I had 2 BBC auditions that day. At the first, for The Pallisers the director asked me where I hoped to be in 20 years time - my totally precocious answer was: ‘Playing Phèdre at the Comedie Francaise! They roared with laughter. The director of Jane Eyre was next door and intrigued to know the cause of such hilarity, so the ice was broken and my nerves left.