Dad's Favorite Book

Entertainment Focus talks about the recent Kevin Spacey Award for the new rock musical Wasted:

The rock-musical tells the story of Yorkshire’s Brontë siblings; Anne, Charlotte, Emily and brother Branwell, with songs inspired by the sisters. The show is set to be staged at West Yorkshire Playhouse in October, as part of the Brontë season marking the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth.
Director Adam Lenson adds: “This is a career defining opportunity for me to be able to direct a major workshop of a stunning new British musical and to get to work closely with the writers up until and beyond
that workshop. I am so grateful for this first show of support for a project that I wholeheartedly believe will go the distance and can help redefine what the British musical can be.” (Samuel Payne)

Nerdist presents the trailer of the upcoming Shipwrecked Comedy video, Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party:

Talk about feeling like you missed out on the party of a lifetime! Thanks to the fine folks at Shipwrecked Comedy, and a whole bunch of backers through Kickstarter, Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party will be coming to YouTube this August. Take a moment and check out the exclusive trailer for t
his literary whodunit above.
As we reported in February, the new show is an offshoot of Shipwrecked’s A Tell Tale Vlog and follows the tale of Edgar Allen Poe (Sean Persaud) and Lenore (Sinead Persaud) as they throw a dinner party for the literary ages. In attendance, all your favorite classic authors from Ernest Hemingway (Joey Richter) to Charlotte Brontë (Ashley Clements) and H.G. Wells (Blake Silver), and that’s just three from the guest list! (Rachel Berkey)

Entertainment Weekly and BuddyTV discuss the latest episode of American Gothic (S01E06):

Madeline is quick to refute any suspicions of Mitch, and Alison makes the very valid point that Mitch’s “favorite book was Wuthering Heights,” making him an innocent man if there ever was one. (Christina Ciammaichelli)

Alison, meanwhile, goes to read her dad's favorite book Wuthering Heights. Instead, though, she finds some pictures and papers inside. (Robin Lempel)

Keighley News informs that Sally Wainwright has received an honorary award honoured by the University of Huddersfield:

The writer of the BBC’s upcoming Brontë movie To Walk Invisible has been honoured by the University of Huddersfield.
Sally Wainwright, who sets many of her TV dramas in West Yorkshire, received honorary awards during the university’s graduation ceremony this month. (David Knights)

The Yorkshire Evening Post presents the new season of the West Yorkshire Playhouse:

The Brontë Season is being presented in partnership with the Brontë Parsonage Museum and it opens with an interesting take on Villette. Linda Marshall-Griffiths has reimagined Charlotte’s ground-breaking novel but stayed very true to the spirit, setting the story in a strange future.
Brilliant Yorkshire writer Emma Adams has created an immersive audio drama called Tiny Shoes which will be presented as part of the season and there will be an exclusive work-in-progress sharing of Wasted, a musical that tells the story of Anne, Branwell, Charlotte and Emily who are “nobodies from nowhere with something to say”.
At the season launch there was a preview of some of the music that will be performed at the work-in-progress in October and it is fair to say the Brontës are not being treated with an overly respectful reverence – only a good thing. There will also be a series of panel events and discussions presented as part of the season.

Black Mountain News interviews the writer Jill Jones, author in 1995 of Emily's Secret:

 “You have to start with a question,” she said. “The one I came up with was, 'show me the person that could influence my writing.' Presently, I saw myself on a high hill. There was a man with his back to me and a woman with a white dress blowing in the wind. I felt a  sadness and emotional turmoil because I knew this couple weren’t supposed to be together. Then the screen in my mind went blank. Then the words 'Emily Brontë.' Then the word 'poetry.' And it all dissolved.”
Knowing little about Emily Brontë (she hadn’t even read "Wuthering Heights"), she set out to do research, reading stacks of books on the Brontës. Soon she was engrossed in her first award-winning novel, "Emily’s Secret,"  based on an imagined, undiscovered diary centering on the last two years of Emily Brontë’s life, 1847-1848.
“What I did,” Jones said, “was devise a timeline of what Emily actually did during those two years when she wrote her book. I said to myself, ‘What if? How did an Anglican spinster who never had a boyfriend come up with the classic dark hero Heathcliff?’  And that became Emily’s secret.”
Believing her novels should be firmly grounded in a sense of place, Jones went to Haworth in the north of England and took in the entire ambiance of Bronte’s world. (Shelly Frome)

The Spectator complains about the absence of imagination in British period drama:

Classy costume drama — invariably based, for extra classiness, on classy fiction of the sort you might find in Penguin Classics — is one of our major exports. But in the range of its source material they consider, its makers are as blinkered as the inevitable horse that draws Mr Darcy’s inevitable carriage in the inevitable tracking shot round Pemberley.
You’ll get Dickens, Tolstoy, Jane Austen and — so garlanded by now in TV adaptation terms that she joins their ranks — Hilary Mantel. You might get the odd better-known Brontë, if you’re lucky, and Hardy always goes down well. (Sam Leith)

FSU News reveals some plans (or hopes) of the Jane & Co theatre company:

They hope to continue a partnership with Monticello Opera House, a location they find great for the stories they want to tell. They listed off potential future productions, from Oscar Wilde to Jane Eyre, all of which would fit great in their repertoire. (Trevor Durham)

TeamRock lists the sexiest prog songs, including Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights:

Where do yo start? Penned when she was a mere 18-years old having devoured Emily Brontë's novel of the same name, this was the song that introduced the world to Kate Bush. It's the sound of a thousand teenage boy's jaws hitting the floor in bedrooms around the world, and the beginning of a million unrequited love affairs, especially when they saw her perform it on video, replete with the similar soft focus lighting they were used to on those videos they used to borrow from the bottom of dad's wardrobe. Or was that just me? (Jerry Ewing)

Montrose Press loved BabyLit's Jane Eyre counting book:

To my extreme delight, I also found a “BabyLit” version of “Jane Eyre” in the board books collection. It's by Jennifer Adams (E Ada), and it's an adorable counting book (1 governess! 4 towers! 9 pearls!) I wanted to read it every night. (Sara Rinne)

David Holsted in the Harrison Daily:

Whatever the reason, I’ve kind of gotten into reading books just for the stories. The good-old-days syndrome kicked in, and I thought to myself, “Self, those hours in English class discussing “A Tale of Two Cities” and “The Scarlet Letter” weren’t so bad. Though it might ruin my reputation as a dude, in the words of the geek in “Sixteen Candles,” I have to admit that “Jane Eyre” wasn’t so bad.

Il Sole (and here) (Italy) visits Haworth and Brontë country:

Abbazie in rovina che ospitano letture serali di Shakespeare e antichi treni a vapore che attraversano colline punteggiate da paesini con cottage in pietra. E poi visita a Haworth nella casa dove vissero le sorelle Brontë, circondata dalla brughiera. Viaggio nella campagna inglese
Nello Yorkshire, sulle orme delle Brontë
Nella chiesa di St Michael and All Angels di Haworth qualcuno ha lasciato fiori e lettere accanto alla lastra in memoria di Emily e Charlotte Brontë, le sorelle autrici di "Cime tempestose" e "Jane Eyre", romanzi fondamentali della letteratura mondiale.
Haworth, villaggio di seimila anime circondato dalla brughiera dello Yorkshire, vive sul mito della famiglia Brontë. È qui che, nella prima metà dell'Ottocento, scrissero le loro opere e vissero Emily, Charlotte e Anne con il fratello Branwell, poeta e ritrattista con problemi di alcol e droghe, e il padre, il reverendo Patrick, di origine irlandese. (Arianna Garavaglia) (Translation)

RFI (France) mentions the recent publication of Stéphane Labbe's Les Soeurs Brontë à 20 ans:

Cette année marque les 200 ans de la naissance de Charlotte Brontë. A cette occasion, Stéphane Labbe, professeur de lettres, passionné de littérature anglaise, publie dans la collection « A 20 ans », des éditions Au Diable Vauvert, un ouvrage intitulé Les sœurs Brontë, au nom du père, du frère et de l’esprit. Un ouvrage complet qui retrace le destin de la famille Brontë. (Jean-François Cadet) (Translation)

Bento (in German) discusses online melancholy:

Das Motiv des melancholischen Mädchens ist alt und wird auf neu poliert: Schon in Romeo und Julia schafft Shakespeare eine morbide Romantik, die auch heute noch fasziniert. Jane Eyre ist die verzweifelte Heldin schlechthin, die kleine Meerjungfrau stirbt an ihrer unglücklichen Liebe. Besonders ist jetzt nur die Unmittelbarkeit der Bilder, Sätze und Videos, die uns im Netz direkt erreichen. (Nora Noll) (Translation)

Chronique Republicaine (France) recommends Jolien Janzing's De Meester. One of the participants in Channel 4’s Child Genius is a Brontëite, according to the Daily Mail. Linnet Moss explores Jane Eyre on Page and Screen through her Costumes and Hair. Poetrature reviews Jane Eyre.The Brussels Brontë Blog posts about Villette and The Professor translations in Greek, Eslovenian, Albanian and Macedonian.