Spinster Agenda

Lucasta Miller reviews Deborah Lutz's The Brontë Cabinet in The Guardian. An interesting article that you should read in full:

Deborah Lutz’s engaging new study proves that there is indeed room for fresh perspectives. Her highly personal voyage through the sisters’ lives, works and times is less a straight biography than an act of necromancy that allows us to feel the texture of the Brontës’ experience, both inner and outer. She pulls off the hardest trick in literary biography: to make us feel that we know the subjects intimately, and, simultaneously, to make the familiar strange and remind us of the space that separates us from the dead. (...)
Lutz has a rare capacity for imaginative empathy and so fine a nose for detail that she even revels in the smell of some of the Brontë-related artefacts she has encountered. All lovers of the Brontës should read this book. It will perhaps mean most to those who already have some prior knowledge of the sisters’ lives and works, but it is equally capable of whetting the appetites of those coming to them for the first time.

Shannon Reed explains in The New Yorker what the Spinster Agenda is:

Q: What are some of the goals of the Spinster Agenda?
A: Increasing the prominence of women in the government, a greater reliance on bike-share programs, the elimination of lonely cats, better television adaptations of the Brontë sisters’ work, further research into cloning Benedict Cumberbatch, the immediate green-lighting of an Emma Thompson and Colin Firth movie with lots of clothed sex that’s set in the eighteen hundreds, Glynis Johns in her “Mary Poppins” costume on the hundred-dollar bill, world peace.

Western Morning News lists several landscapes which inspired novels. With Wuthering Heights we can, in a way, accept it... but with Jane Eyre we think it is a bit forced:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) This timeless classic was inspired by Hathersage, Derbyshire, when the author visited the village in 1845. (...)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1846) This classic novel was inspired by the views of Yorkshire Moors near where Brontë lived.

Hannah Lamarque shares what she has learnt from reading. In The Huffington Post:

Meanwhile, Charlotte Brontë has shared invaluable lessons through the course of her work. Brontë's novels consistently featured strong, unequivocally "plain" (her words, not mine) and singular women at their helm. Despite their physical "ineptitude", theysomehow managed to attract the attention of the opposite sex through things like personality, intelligence and inner strength. Huh. Brontë consistently championed relationships which, essentially, were equal and loving (although not always at first). Any connection - in business or otherwise - that we form and nurture should be based on the same ideologies. You owe it to yourself and to the person with whom you're connecting.

BBC's Fake or Fortune? will feature  St Joan the Baptist church in Tunstall (in the 1820s it was attended by the Brontë sisters during their stay at the Clergy Daughters' School in Cowan Bridge). As reported in The Lancater Guardian:

This week the ancient picture-postcard grade 1 listed church of St John the Baptist in Tunstall once patronised by the Brontë sisters, will take centre stage in the programme.

Cary Fukunaga's work in Jane Eyre 2011 is described as 'impressive, finely wrought' (Matt Brennnan) in IndieWire's Thompson on Hollywood and Toby Stephens's Rochester in Jane Eyre 2006 is an 'acclaimed' performance according to Michael Hodges in Radio Times.

Guillermo Del Toro continues quoting Jane Eyre as one of the principal references of his new film Crimson Peak:

He describes it as a classical Gothic romance in the vein of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Rebecca and waxes ecstatic about the lush design he infused the film with, colors popping off the screen. (Jen Yamato in The Daily Beast)

The famed producer/director favored his film to the likes of Jane Eyre and I Walked with a Zombie, and if you fuse these movies together, fans are going to admire his current template of romance and squeaky haunted closets. (Philip Hernandez in The Liberty Voice)

Ultimate Classic Rock interviews Dave Edmunds about his album On Guitar... Dave Edmunds: Rags & Classics:

Have any of the artists heard your versions of the songs? (Matt Wardlaw)
I don’t know. I’d like to send a copy to Jeff Beck — not that I’m doing any Jeff Beck songs on there. I’d like Elton John to hear “Your Song,” because I’m quite proud of it. Kate Bush, I think, and the producer, would be interested “Wuthering Heights.” So I might get around to that.

The journalist and author Teresa Viejo presents her novel Mientras Llueva in Las Provincias (Spain):

¿Ese perfil de mujer fuerte e independiente, adelantada a su época no le recuerda a personajes como Sira Quiroga de ‘El tiempo entre costuras’? (Rebeca Ruiz)
- Alma me recuerda más a Jane Eyre. He crecido con esos personajes femeninos y han sido mis referentes. Me recuerda a la señora de Winter cuando llega a Manderley, la protagonista de ‘Rebeca’, de Daphne du Maurier. Las referencias siempre están ahí, es algo que te construye.  (Translation)