World Book Day news

Happy World Book Day everyone!

The Telegraph and Argus has a brief article on the recent survey which showed that '20 per cent of trips with a literary link were to Yorkshire'.

Haworth and its links to the Brontë sisters have helped Yorkshire become the top county for tourists taking “literary” holidays.
The new survey into literary tourism, carried out by Visit England, found that nationwide, 20 per cent of trips with a literary link were to Yorkshire.
It was only behind London, which had 21 per cent of trips.
Haworth is home to the Brontë Parsonage, where the sisters grew up and is now a museum, and the moorlands that inspired much of their work.
Yorkshire is also home to Whitby Abbey, which inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The study also revealed more than half of British holidaymakers would visit a literary attraction while on holiday in England, while one in four had visited a literary location while on holiday in the past year.
The same amount had read a book with a literary link to a place they had recently visited in the country.
Sir Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “Yorkshire’s ever-changing scenery, dramatic landscapes and fascinating characters have all been great sources of literary inspiration, so it’s no surprise that so many people want to come and see the stunning landscapes that inspired their favourite books for themselves.” (Chris Young)

More surveys, as the Evening Standard tells about a new report published by The Royal Society of Literature called Literature in Britain Today [PDF file].

. . . revealing the results of an Ipsos MORI poll of a representative sample of 1,998 members of the British public. The survey is, the RSL says, “as far as we know, the first time anyone has attempted to find out how many people read literature, what literature means to them, and which writers they consider to be literature”.
Most of the results come straight from Sybil Fawlty’s specialist subject, the bleeding obvious. “Men and people from disadvantaged social groups are particularly likely to miss out on literature.” Women and the better educated read more. Who knew? [...]
More interesting, in a way, is the section in which respondents were asked if they could name just one writer, living or dead, whose work they would describe as literature. Some 20 per cent said they either “didn’t know, were not sure or couldn’t remember”
The choices of the rest, 400 names in all although most only remembered by one person, amount to “arguably the most definitive summary that exists of Britain’s literary canon”, claims RSL director Tim Robertson, daftly.
The list is topped by Shakespeare (11 per cent), Dickens (nine per cent), J K Rowling (seven per cent) and Roald Dahl (five per cent). Among the one percenters comes chaos — Thomas Hardy and the Brontës fighting it out with Dan Brown and Danielle Steel. Jack Higgins and Homer are remembered twice while among hundreds remembered once, Monty Don takes on Dante Alighieri and Doris Stokes battles Vladimir Nabokov, probably in the afterlife. (David Sexton)

The Guardian has asked writer Kate Hamer to select her 'Top 10 books about adopted children'. Her list includes

10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
How could this not be in the Top 10? When Mrs Reed unwillingly adopts Jane, the young girl begins a fight to define herself in the face of others attempting to do it for her. This is the ultimate novel, for so many people, about how one holds onto identity in the face of overwhelming odds.

While Female First has writer Kate Beaufoy tell about her top fictional characters. Her choice is interesting.

There are a handful of heroines so familiar that the mere mention of their names conjures up a clear image. Scarlett O’Hara, vain, extrovert, single-minded; Jane Eyre, plain, dignified, conscientious; Elizabeth Bennett, intelligent, amusing, self-confident.
And then there are the forgotten heroines: Dorothy Shaw, the wisecracking brunette in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; Isabella Linton, outrageously upstaged by Cathy in Wuthering Heights; and Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web, who - despite actually owning the web - has no surname, plays second fiddle to a pig and ends up in the trash. [...]
The film adaptations of Wuthering Heights generally portray Isabella as a bit of a milksop, a pretty blonde foil to Cathy’s tempestuous beauty. However, in the book, Isabella is described as having a ‘keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too.’ This is made evident when - abused, beaten, and pregnant with Heathcliff’s child - she insults and provokes him, fires a kitchen knife in his direction, and flees Wuthering Heights on a stormy night, never to return. ‘Catherine,’ she declares, ‘had an awfully perverted taste to esteem Heathcliff so dearly.’
We can only applaud. How many aristocratic women in 19th century literature had the guts to abandon their abusive spouses and embark on life as a lone parent?

Stuff (New Zealand) describes The Damned's take on the song Eloise as

a cover defined by orchestrated melodrama and Emily Brontë allure. (Craig Mathieson)

We are pleasantly surprised to see both Emily and Anne Brontë praised as poets - among others - in ABC (Spain). Linnet Moss discusses the portrayals of St John Rivers, both in the original novel and on the screen.