An opening paragraph that contained no less than 60 words

Irish writer Val Mulkerns died on March 10 and The Irish Times has asked other fellow writers to write a short piece about her.

My aunt had a secret identity known only to children. She was Fairy Book Mother to a generation of adoring small readers whose lives she transformed by the gift of wonderful, perfectly chosen books. Christmas and birthdays were not quite complete until the opening of a little parcel from Auntie Val, beautifully wrapped, with a meticulously-written dedication. [...]
There would be a knowing smile when you opened your parcel. What larks! I remember the moment I actually thrilled to an opening paragraph that contained no less than 60 words, beginning: “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day …” With that sentence, I was introduced to Jane Eyre and changed from child to young adult reader, embracing a new era of many more great books until I read her own. There, I found a familiar world that I think, for its time, was rarely depicted, and certainly never so well.
In her last book, a lovely memoir, I learned that Jane Eyre was her favourite too. For the gift of all those books and then her own, and apart from the wonder of having a strong, inspiring role model in my nascent years, it was indeed a magical thing to have an aunt like Val. (Helena Mulkerns)

A contributor to The Washington Post discusses the impact that children may or may not have on a (woman) writer's career and recalls the fact that

Many female writers I admire, including Virginia Woolf, the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen, were childless. (Joy Lanzendorfer)

USA Today's Happy Ever After interviews Passionflix co-founders Tosca Musk and Jina Panebianco.

What was the first romance book you read? Tosca: Pride and Prejudice. (I still have my copy from when I was 10!)
Jina: Wuthering Heights. (I remember it was sitting on a shelf at my aunt’s house and I just picked it up.) (Jessie Potts)

An American in Singapore asks The New York Times' Match Book for reading suggestions for a feminist book club there.

The domestic bonds that doom the female characters in the classics of the Western feminist cannon — from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, to “Wide Sargasso Sea,” by Jean Rhys — find echoes in two arresting novels by Asian writers. “The Waiting Years,” Fumiko Enchi’s psychologically astute 1957 novel of stifled emotions, traces the protracted humiliation of Tomo, a 19th-century Japanese wife obliged to procure a series of mistresses for her husband over the course of their marriage. (Nicole Lamy)

Another bookish enquiry in the Sheffield Telegraph:

Clare says: I’m from Yorkshire, and my husband is from Scotland. It’s easy to get children’s books that are set in Scotland or about Scottish characters, but what children’s books are there set in Yorkshire? I have tried to get hold of the old James Herriot children’s stories, but they’re difficult to find.
Anna says: I put a call out on Twitter for ideas for you, realising that giving children Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre to read might not be the best idea. I read the Brontës at a young age, understood less than half of what was going on, and was left with nightmares about burning beds and a belief that ideal love is when he digs up your coffin to embrace your 20-year- old corpse, neither of which I’ve ever been able to entirely shake. (Anna Caig)

My Olivine posts about Jane Eyre.