Original and Unconventional

Deborah Lutz's The Brontë Cabinet is reviewed by The Herald:

For some reason, however, as with Jane Austen, these writers attract a degree of biographical attention that borders on the besotted. American academic Deborah Lutz is well aware that she is treading on a path deeply rutted by the passage of thousands before her: "A whole library could be filled with books published on the Brontës, many of them so excellent that one feels there need be no more." But, undaunted, she proceeds, her aim being to illuminate these writers through their belongings. "There has been little writing on most of these artefacts," she assures us, "on some not a jot." What follows are nine chapters each devoted to a household item that offers a keyhole into the way these women thought, behaved and wrote. (...)
With each of her objects, Lutz broadens her scope from their immediate relevance to the Brontës to bring in the wider world. Thus, in talking about a gnarled walnut walking stick which the sisters may or may not have used on their vigorous daily walks in the moors, she expands into a discussion of the almost revolutionary aspect of women of their class walking alone in this period. Such digressions also have the virtue of removing us from the sometimes suffocating Brontë household. Above all, they shed light on the age itself, which did so much to shape this remarkable trio, original and unconventional though they were. (Rosemary Goring)

and The Christian Science Monitor:

Gentle reader, beware: The Brontë Cabinet is no ordinary biography. Anyone wanting direct narration of the Brontë sisters’ lives should look elsewhere. Those who do read this book will follow the Brontës but will also be redirected into shadowy spaces where bodies have left stains, feet have passed, and locks of hair have been hoarded.
In these pursuits, Deborah Lutz is a bit like a 19th-century medium gathering the objects of the dead at a séance. She gathers and interprets the objects, actions, and landscapes that inflected a family of authors, of women, of nineteenth-century thinkers. Her auguries turn on things as varied as potato peelings, dog collars, albums, sewing boxes, and hiking trails. She investigates the places where objects provoke an almost physical sense of encounter. She reads things to see what they might tell her about life and about literature. This is to say, she leaps between objects and disciplines to craft an unusual cultural history – not just about a family of authors but about reading itself. (Read more) (Tess Taylor)

The book is recommended as a summer read by Lancaster Online:

3. “The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects” by Deborah Lutz: A Victorian scholar illuminates the lives of the Brontë sisters through their possessions. A wonderful read for anyone who loved “Jane Eyre” or “Wuthering Heights.”

The Independent reviews The Not-Dead and the Saved and Other Stories by Kate Clanchy

In “Brunty Country” an aviator-wearing literary agent seeks out the Brontës on the Yorkshire moors, and while the story might prompt a guffaw from those in the business the tone is a little too knowing. Then again, the image of Charlotte Brontë appearing at the door with her hair “embalmed into a bun” is enough to forgive all – even the reference to an Emily Brontë All Saints collaboration. (Matilda Bathurst)

Bryony Gordon in The Telegraph may not be channeling the right person:

But I’m not sure that is entirely true. I think the reason people’s comments irk me is that they have an element of truth. So I resolve to spend the evening being nothing but demure – ha! – and lovely. I channel my inner Charlotte Brontë, wherever the hell she is.

NPR Books discusses  romantic heroes:

You see, my idea of romance hero — which was imprinted on my brain before my brain was fully formed — is Heathcliff. You know, the guy from Wuthering Heights who spends his life chasing his beloved Cathy all over the moor?
The only problem is, I reread Wuthering Heights a couple of years ago, and to my horror I realized that the Heathcliff is downright mean. He is so obsessed with Cathy that he thinks it's okay to ruin everyone else he knows. He's not just abusive — he's a complete jerk.
"I'm sorry, Heathcliff fans, but it's true," says Carrie Sessarego, author of Pride, Prejudice and Popcorn. "He's a fascinating jerk, he's a mesmerizing jerk — but there's never really a point where he says, 'Ya know, maybe I shouldn't have been such a jerk.'" (Lynn Neary)

Two Haworth residents have visited the Haworth in New Jersey. As reported in Keighley News:

A brick forming part of the grounds of an expanded library in Haworth has been paid for by Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council.
But this library is a very long way from Haworth, West Yorkshire!
The library is in the small suburb of Haworth New Jersey, in the United States, which was named after the original town in Yorkshire by a fan of the Brontë sisters. (Miran Rahman)

 The Mirror talks about The Angel & The Cad by Geraldine Roberts:

Geraldine calls him [William Wellesley Pole] a cross between Heathcliff from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, and says if ever her book becomes a film Poldark’s Aiden Turner is perfect to play him. (Rachel Bletchly)

Crafty twins in The Belfast Telegraph:

With their porcelain skin and calm, otherworldly demeanour, twin sisters Julie and Lauren Scott could have stepped out of the covers of a Victorian Gothic novel by Dickens or the Brontë sisters.  (Stephanie Bell)

This salutatorian speech in the West Essex Regional School has a Brontë reference. As published in New Jersey Hills:

In my favorite novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, Jane says, “I am a free human being with an independent will”. As we, the class of 2015, make our way into the world, we must exercise this free will to better ourselves and our community. (Isabelle de Brabanter)

 Movies in the Square is an initiative by the Glade Spring Library, Glade Spring, VA:

“Wuthering Heights” is slated to be shown Tuesday, June 30 at 2 p.m. Part of the library’s Book to Film series, this is William Wyler’s version of the book by Emily Brontë. (SWVa Today)

The Conway Daily Sun talks about the Bernie Sanders Democratic campaign for the nomination:

Yet the Clinton campaign must deal with the factors that make all those hearts flutter there by the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire or by the Raccoon River in Iowa, for Sanders, who by appearance — floppy white hair, rumpled suit — does not exactly possess the raw materials (or the raw energy) that customarily make the masses swoon. He's no Edward Rochester of "Jane Eyre," nor even Heathcliff of "Wuthering Heights."

Not much coastline (abyssal or not) in the Brontës novels, but El Periódico (Guatemala) seems a bit oblivious of it:

Los escritores de ayer fueron atraídos por el ambiente natural que formaba parte de su identidad. Los escribas de su tiempo hablaron de sus grandes ríos, o de mares donde surcó Ulises, o los paisajes que dieron paso al espíritu pionero en todos los continentes. Allí los bosques de Alemania sirviendo de escenario a los cuentos de los Hermanos Grimm. O los abismos costeros ingleses, dando mayor dramatismo a Cumbres Borrascosas o a Jane Eyre. (Fernando González Davison) (Translation)

Check out the Brontea Tree in the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival:

 This tree, decorated for the #HBAF by The Brontë Society is just our cup of tea! Find it in Holme Street, Hebden Bridge. Bronte Parsonage Museum. #HBAF — in Hebden Bridge.

And don't forget the new set of pictures uploaded by the Brontë Bell Chapel Facebook Group in Thornton.