Abetting Closeness

Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy column on Slate begins today with a fragment of an Emily Brontë poem:

Still, as I mused, the naked room,
The alien firelight died away;
And from the midst of cheerless gloom,
I passed to bright, unclouded day.
—Emily Brontë, “A Little While, A Little While”

The Telegraph & Argus covers the upcoming activities at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

The Summer holidays are in full swing at the museum, and so is our programme of family activities!
We’re finding that our Brontë Mystery trail is going down a storm with families, and the Meeting Charlotte talks that we’re running twice a day each Tuesday have been really well attended.
They are the perfect supplement to our Charlotte Great and Small exhibition, curated by novelist Tracy Chevalier, which keeps going from strength to strength.
We’re also offering fun, family-friendly drop-in craft workshops every Wednesday of the summer holidays, between 11am and 4pm. These sessions are all artist-led, and all materials are provided.
Why not come along on Wednesday August 24 and make your own 3D paper boat, or visit on August 31 and create your own Parsonage in watercolour?
Best of all, these trails, talks and workshops are all free with admission to the museum.
We’re looking ahead to our Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing, which runs from September 9 to 11, and we’re delighted to be hosting our sixth festival dedicated to showcasing and celebrating women’s writing and the limitless ways in which the Brontë sisters continue to inspire contemporary literature.
Tickets are currently still available for all festival events, but they’re going very quickly and spaces are limited!
The festival kicks off on the afternoon of Friday, September 9, when the inimitable Glynis Charlton returns to Haworth with another of her friendly, informal writing workshops – Glynis’s sessions always sell out, so book your ticket soon!
On Friday evening, we’ll be hosting a Meet the Editors evening in partnership with Mslexia, the nation’s best-selling literary magazine.
Come along to Cobbles and Clay from 7pm to meet editors from three of the region’s most influential independent presses (Bluemoose Books, Comma Press and Dog Horn Publishing), who will be sharing their wisdom and providing tips on how best to submit your work.
The evening will end with a Spotlight open-mic session, and is not-to-be-missed for all aspiring local writers.
Mslexia will also host two writing workshops – How to Write a Synopsis and An Arresting First Page - at the glorious Ponden Hall on Saturday, September 10.
Saturday evening sees our star-studded headline event at West Lane Baptist Centre – award-winning novelists Jessie Burton (The Miniaturist, The Muse), Grace McCleen (our 2016 writer-in-residence) and Tracy Chevalier will discuss The Magic of the Miniature.
This will be a totally unique and very special event, featuring readings from Jessie and Grace’s work, and tickets are in high demand – don’t miss out!
Finally, perennial favourites LipService, the long-established comedy duo, will close the festival on sunday September 11 with their brand-new, specially-commissioned walking tour of Haworth – Withering Walks.
This journey of discovery promises to reveal a whole new side to both Haworth and the Brontës, so don your walking boots and join us for this whirlwind tour around crumbling cobbles, ghostly ginnels and blasted stumps.
Tickets for all events can be booked online at bronte.org.uk/whats-on or by calling 01535 640188. (David Knights) 

Siblings' love or rivalry in The Telegraph:

Then there’s feuding sibling authors A S Byatt and Margaret Drabble, whose rift is “beyond repair” and wasn’t helped by Byatt’s novel The Game, which Drabble described as “a mean-spirited book about sibling rivalry”. Happily, this kind of split is rare. The aiding and abetting closeness of Charlotte and Emily Brontë – or Serena and Venus Williams – is more typical. (Rowan Pelling)

Finding 'The One' on the Daily Mail:

All the iconic couples from literature lived quite near each other. Romeo and Juliet in the same city, Cathy and Heathcliff the same house... but, of course, that’s not exactly what we mean by The One.
The One is our way of talking about a feeling; a passion so strong and special that you believe it must be unique.
As a child of parents who no longer seemed to like each other much, I only had romantic role models from literature, and I read voraciously; graduating quickly from children’s staples to my parents’ bookshelves lined with classics by the Brontës, (Kate Eberlen)

Quora discusses Friedrich Hayek's economic ideas:

But then, compared to Hayek, the economics profession in general would not even accept that there was a problem in their formalistic theories of the economy. Many were addicted to Keynes’s absurd “circular flow” model, in which capital gets tucked away in the attic like one’s mad wife (gratuitous Brontë reference). (Timo Virkkala)

Books Tell You Why tries to summarise the events that took place at the latest Brontë Society AGM:

The museum houses the world's largest collection of Brontë memorabilia from clothing to furniture, and even manuscripts and letters. It is an important site for both Brontë scholars and general fans. The society dedicates itself to the promotion of modern day study of the four writers and hosts festivals, competitions, and other events to that end. The Brontë Society's events and work have become even more important recently as this year marks Charlotte Brontë's bicentennial, with each of her siblings' celebrations following soon after. However, the society's goals have recently been put in jeopardy by a growing disagreement between distinct factions of the society. The dispute recently came to a head during the society's annual meeting in June, prompting numerous mocking headlines about the large argument that took place in the presence of a reporter. (Read more) (Adrienne Rivera)

Kocham Czytać (in Polish) reviews Wuthering Heights.