Forthcoming events and new books

The Bookseller features the Bradford Literature Festival 2018, which starts today.

Musician-writer Kate Bush, novelist Jeanette Winterson and former boxer Frank Bruno are among those participating in the Bradford Literature Festival 2018, in association with Provident Financial Group, where over 500 speakers will feature across more than 400 sessions. [...]
One of the festival’s special commissions this year includes a public art installation celebrating the Brontë sisters from Kate Bush, Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay and Jeanette Winterson. The project features four new, original works of writing engraved onto stones set into different locations in "rugged" Yorkshire, the landscape of such novels as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The journey to visit all four points is approximately eight miles and believed to have been the route the sisters themselves often took between their home in Thornton and the family parsonage in Haworth.
Of the four commissioned pieces, three of the works (by Bush, Duffy and Kay) respond to one of the Brontë sisters each (Emily, Charlotte and Anne, respectively), while the fourth (by Winterson) responds to the Brontë legacy as a whole. Several other special events are also programmed at the festival in homage to Bradford’s historical connection to the Brontë sisters, this year focusing on the bicentenary of Emily Brontë. (Katherine Cowdrey)

The New York Times recommends nine new books, including

A View of the Empire at Sunset, by Caryl Phillips. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) Set in England, France and the Caribbean, Phillips’s fragmented novel uses the difficult, lonely life of the half-Welsh, half-West-Indian writer Jean Rhys (author of “Wide Sargasso Sea”) to explore themes of alienation, colonialism and exile. “In this meshing of Phillips as writer and Rhys as subject all the great themes of Phillips’s fiction cohere,” our reviewer, William Boyd, writes. “That the novel succeeds so well is a tribute to Phillips’s mastery of tone.”

Daily Mail reviews it briefly.

In Wide Sargasso Sea, the novelist Jean Rhys pulled off an audacious — and outstanding — act of literary revisionism, imagining how Bertha, the prototype madwoman in the attic, ended up locked in Rochester’s mansion in Jane Eyre.
In a novel full of echoes of Wide Sargasso Sea, Caryl Phillips imagines the story of Rhys herself, who came to England from Dominica in 1906 to live with an aunt before going to study acting in London.
Just like Bertha, his Rhys is trapped: in a dank, depressing city of cheap bedsits and predatory men, through which she drifts like a tattered leaf on the breeze.
Dependent on various men for money and, more and more, booze, she exists in scenes that often feel more like a series of painterly tableaux, becoming increasingly a passive onlooker to her own unhappy life. Phillips’s novel ends before Rhys discovers her voice as a writer, yet in this curiously inert, colourless novel, you struggle to hear her voice at all. (Claire Allfree)

The Times on Florence Welch, alma mater of Florence+The Machine:

When Welch hit it big in 2008 with the irrepressible Dog Days Are Over she was an arresting but familiar figure, reminiscent of that kid who was always first on the dancefloor at the school disco, spinning around to Wuthering Heights before collapsing on the gym mats. (Will Hodgkinson)

Bustle recommends several new books too, including My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows.

Five words: Jane Eyre retelling with ghosts. (Cristina Arreola)

Hypable reviews it more extensively:

My Plain Jane is a retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s most famous novel, but it’s so much more than that. In the hands of The Lady Janies (authors Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton), Jane Eyre’s story becomes one not of duty and romance, but of adventure, friendship, and ghosts. It also answers the interesting question “What if Jane Eyre had the ability to see ghosts?”
With that prompt in mind, this novel takes off on a wild adventure with interesting turns and familiar faces who get caught in some unfamiliar situations. Take what you *think* you know about Jane Eyre and Charlotte Brontë and throw it out the window.
You’ll enjoy My Plain Jane so much more if you do.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m fascinated by history and most classic literature. (I say *most* because I’m not a Jane Austen fan and Pride and Prejudice does nothing for me. #SorryNotSorry) I love reading stories with rich historical contexts and learning more about cultures through fiction.
*But* when a piece of historical fiction expertly pulls off an idea that at first seems too crazy to work (like Jane Eyre seeing ghosts or women fighting in the infantry during World War II)? I’m in. I have no trouble letting go of my historical accuracy hat and just enjoying myself. [...]
The paranormal-ness of it all also adds a whole lot of humor. Since not everyone has the ability to see ghosts, it’s comical to read a scene between characters (both humans and ghosts) where only a few people interact with both the living and dead, leaving others lost and confused.
The ghosts’ behavior is also quite entertaining. While some, like Jane’s best friend Helen Burns, are relatively tame, others have quite the personality to them. Of course, the ghosts’ personalities almost directly reflect how they were when they were alive, but their ethereal state allows them more leeway to do what they want, when they want.
The plot, however, isn’t as variable as the ghosts. It can be quite predictable at times (especially for fans of Jane Eyre), but, honestly, it’s about the journey, not the reveals and twists. Retellings are fun because of the comparison factor, not because there are new and interesting major OMG moments. Seeing how the characters come to certain conclusions and watching them discover things that we, the reader, already know is a lot of fun. If you’re someone who thirsts for character development, even at the expense of plot twists, you’re going to love this book.
Grace Poole, Mr. Brocklehurst, Mrs. Fairfax, Edward Rochester, Helen Burns… All of the most notable characters from Jane Eyre get quite a bit to do in this retelling. However, while they’re all recognizable and similar to their counterparts in the source material, they all have unexpected character twists in this. So, while we as readers may have an idea where the story goes, their new character traits take it in different and surprising directions along the way. [...]
Many times, the Brontës (namely Charlotte and her brother Branwell) are used as stand-ins for groups of minor characters which allows them to be directly involved with the story without sacrificing anything. Their involvement in this way allows the reader more time to invest in the characters they know rather than just introducing and under-developing an onslaught of minor characters we’ll never see again.
The Brontës’ inclusion also creates a couple of levels of meta within the story. One one level, we’re given a front row seat to watch Charlotte Brontë craft her classic tale as it unfolds in “real” life before her. This is interesting in that we’re called upon to think about why certain elements of My Plain Jane‘s “real world” didn’t make it in or were changed for her novel. The second level is that, now that Charlotte is a major part of the story, her shift into being a character frees up space for the Lady Janies to become the narrators and make all of the asides and sassy comments that they want to.
Speaking of Charlotte, though: I love Charlotte. Though Charlotte Brontë was a real person, the Charlotte character is more malleable within the context of this story because she doesn’t have abide by certain story and character beats like Jane does. We have very little literature-based information about Charlotte, which allows the authors to really play with her and develop her more. Plus, like us, the readers, she’s the true outsider — not Jane — and so we’re learning about the world alongside her. Honestly, she’s more of the main character than Jane Eyre and I think I love her most. [...]
And, to enhance that sass, there are a ton of really witty and clever pop culture references. I’m talking references to everything from Jane Eyre‘s contemporaries (like Wuthering Heights‘s Heathcliff and Catherine) to Harry Potter to modern day events like the most recent U.S. presidential inauguration and “Nevertheless, she persisted.” The inclusion of so many pop culture references would take away from the story and the atmosphere of a lesser novel, but the Lady Janies’ skillful writing and world-building help make each reference flourish in its context.
In case you couldn’t tell, I had a blast reading this book. My Plain Jane, like My Lady Jane, perfectly balances historical accuracy and atmosphere, romance, adventure, and pop culture references. Though there are many Jane Eyre retellings out there in the world today, they just don’t compare to this one. It’s more than worth the read. (Danielle Zimmerman)

Memphis Flyer begins a review of the novel The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton as follows:

Let's talk about voice in fiction. Sometimes what's meant by voice is the author's style. Think of Hemingway, Joyce, Nabokov, Faulkner, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf. Their styles are so much their own voices that they changed the way we read fiction. And then there is the voice of a particular novel, which often means an idiosyncratic first-person narrative. Think of The Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, Portnoy's Complaint, Jane Eyre, or Lolita. (Corey Mesler)

The Sisters' Room has a post on a walk to Ponden Kirk.