You like Charlotte Brontë, but would Charlotte Brontë like you?

The New York Times has a bookish interview with Zadie Smith, who seems to have discovered the Charlotte Brontë early on.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most? I think I was a kind of addict. I can remember reading a book called “Dibs in Search of Self,” a scholarly book about autism, when I was about 9, just because my mother owned it and it was there. If it was words on paper and it was in the apartment, then I read it. But the writers that meant most to me: Alice Walker, Roald Dahl, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Noel Streatfeild, Andrew Salkey, L. Maud Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott. Toni Morrison because of “The Black Book,” which she edited — and I read, at a very delicate age, 9 or 10. But C. S. Lewis above all.

And Charlotte Brontë has another writer fan: Jodi Picoult. From an interview in The Boston Globe:

BOOKS: Do you read exclusively American contemporary writers? PICOULT: I tend to. Every now and then I’ll revisit “Pride and Prejudice,” “Jane Eyre,” or Hemingway. I don’t do that often now though because I don’t have much time. So I tend to read authors who are alive and kicking and whom I can send a note and say your book made my week. (Amy Sutherland)

Anne Rice is also a writer fan of Charlotte Brontë but would Charlotte Brontë enjoy reading her books? She wonders in LI Herald:

Some of Rice’s favorite authors include Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Ernest Hemmingway. Stepping Out also asked Rice who may have had the biggest influence on the way she writes now, and which of these three authors did she think would most enjoy reading her books.
“Oh, wow,” she replied. “I’m not sure any of my favorite writers would enjoy my books … maybe Charlotte Brontë would. I hope so. Of the three I love so much, the biggest influence was Dickens for [his] sheer storytelling [and] for simply starting a book and writing it in chronological order, revealing a whole world to us through the eyes of a hero such as Pip in “Great Expectations” or David in “David Copperfield.” (Mary Malloy)

An article on Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca in The Huffington Post highlights the influence of Jane Eyre.

Like so many before and after her, du Maurier was enchanted by the mysterious romance of the tragic Brontë siblings. The influence of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Gothic writing of isolated women and Byronic, secretive men is starkly apparent in Rebecca . Just like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Rebecca is a dark and richly romantic tale of second wives, detached husbands, and unnerving British estates that house secrets and violence. (Kerry Fiallo)

Fairfield-Sun announces that

Pequot Library will hold its Black Friday/Saturday Book Sale on Friday Nov. 25, and Saturday, Nov. 26, from 9-5 daily. There will be tons of deals with most books chosen for their suitability for holiday gift-giving. There will be many new items; most others are gently-used. Plenty of free parking available. The sale takes place in Pequot Library’s Auditorium. Admission is free.

The article features an

Illustration from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, an Easton Press collectible book for sale at Pequot Library’s Black Friday/Saturday Book Sale.

This columnist from The Irish Times reminisces about her teenage years.

Wuthering Heights, my favourite book of all time, was on my English curriculum for the Inter Cert. I was fascinated by the brooding, demonic Heathcliff.
Being a hormonal, love-starved teen, I thought his efforts to be with his dead soulmate, Catherine Earnshaw, were so romantic.
Kate Bush’s classic Wuthering Heights, which is written from Catherine’s point of view, was played on a loop on my cassette recorder.
I tried to look mystical while squawking, “Out on the wiley, windy moors, we’d roll and fall in green” into my hairbrush in front of the mirror.
One evening after secondary school, I decided to take my Wuthering Heights adulation to another level. On a whim, I went into a hairdresser and asked her to crimp my hair like Kate Bush.
I thought I was the cat’s pyjamas, when I finally arrived home an hour after missing the school bus.
Unsurprisingly, my mother who was pacing the road like a caged lion, did not agree.(Christina Hession)

Another enthusiast of Wuthering Heights in another Irish newspaper: Evening Echo features teacher Trish Carlos, whose debut novel, The Silver Comb, is out this week.

Bringing a bit of herself into the book, she also manages to reference her favourite band, The Coronas (“We might send them a copy!” she jokes) and one of her favourite books Wuthering Heights.

Haaretz reviews Andrea Arnold's new film American Honey but references her previous work briefly:

There was something closed, even uptight, about Arnold’s three previous pictures, even if “Fish Tank” traversed the ugly landscapes adjacent to the Essex slum in which the film was set, and “Wuthering Heights” showed the rugged terrain of Yorkshire, without which the portrayal of the love story between Cathy and Heathcliff is impossible. But in this movie the insularity gives way to openness, and the narrative structures that hemmed in the protagonists of her earlier films burst out in all directions. (Uri Klein)

The Spinoff (New Zealand) reviews D∆WN's new music album Redemption.

The woozy guitar of ‘Hey Nikki’ echoes Blackheart’s ‘Billie Jean’ in treating Prince’s subject as a mythological figure equal to the Greek and Norse reference points of her D&D&R&B (seriously, I can’t believe she hadn’t named a song ‘Valhalla’ until now), Wide Sargasso Sea-ing her into subject not object. A Björk-esque world to get lost in from a master at the top of her game. (Stevie Kaye)