There was the intransigent solitary, Emily Brontë

We are all for reading what you enjoy best, but this article in The Telegraph defending the suggestion that 'tutors ask [Oxbrige] candidates about Harry Potter, as opposed to the works of Shakespeare, during the interviews in order to court diversity' and likening it to the time when women writers were 'accepted' into the canon is taking things too far.

If the canon hadn’t adapted to include women, the works of Austen, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and the Brontë sisters might never have been taken seriously. (Katie Russell)

Great fans of Harry Potter as we are, we think that equating the study of the works of the above-mentioned writers with Harry Potter is a bit too much.

Sparked by the latest film adaptation of Little Women, Lyndall Gordon discusses in New Statesman whether 'whether grown women can retain the spirited independence of their girlhood'.

The issue of whether March idealism can be sustained into adulthood opens up further questions. Are some gifted women who keep girlhood going destined to be outsiders? There was the intransigent solitary, Emily Brontë; and Dickinson keeping to her room in Amherst; and George Eliot’s calling herself an “outlaw” and “failure of nature” because she could not conform to what was expected. A larger question is what women at full strength might contribute to civilisation.
In A Room of One’s Own (1929), Virginia Woolf is explicit in stating that “the great problem of the true nature of women” is one she cannot solve. The answer, she says, must wait for her sex to be tested in politics and the professions. Another 100 years, she judges. Well, we’re almost there: only ten more years to go. 

Also in New Statesman, author Edna O'Brien speaks about 'the elusive “love object” that has haunted her life'.

“It’s very hard to get this Love Object, even bodily,” she says, plucking the air with her fingers. “Because one’s influences as a child are so muddled. I mean, Heathcliff would have been an influence in my childhood, the very name. And I’m sorry to sound extremely bonkers, but Jesus Christ was an influence. So there was Catholic imagery, Gothic imagery and wildness all lumped in with a great mind, and good looks – I should have mentioned the good looks. Now, that’s a tall order in life. It’s unrealisable.” (Kate Mossman)

The Hollywood Reporter features 2018 Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia Stacey Abrams's defence of the power of a good story.

"My mom called us the genteel poor — we had no money but we watched PBS and we read books," she said. Her mother was a librarian and would sign them up as volunteers so they could see plays for free. Her father, a shipyard worker, "left home every morning before daybreak, but he never failed to tuck us in on Friday nights with a never-ending bedtime story that rivaled the best sagas ever penned by Octavia Butler or Charlotte Brontë." (Tara Bitran)

El Periódico (Spain) features Ángeles Caso's compilation of great love letters by great writers.

Así que el otro día me alegré mucho al encontrar en la mesa de novedades de mi librería el volumen 'Quiero escribirte esta noche una carta de amor. La correspondencia pasional de quince grandes escritoras y sus historias' de la fantástica Ángeles Caso. La autora escribe una breve biografía de cada escritora –de la abadesa Eloísa a Virginia Woolf, pasando por la abadesa Hildegarda de Bingen, George Sand, Charlotte Brontë o Elizabeth Barrett Browning, por citar a algunas de mis favoritas- seguida de una selección de sus cartas de amor. (Milena Busquets) (Translation)

Malvern Gazette features the English Symphony Orchestra.

"Since 2013, the orchestra has re-emerged as a major force in British musical life, presenting and recording the orchestra’s first full-length opera (the world premiere of John Joubert’s Jane Eyre) to overwhelming critical acclaim, presenting the 2015 and 2016 Classical Music Magazine “Premiere of the Year,” and releasing a triumphant series of recordings including Donald Fraser’s orchestration of the Elgar Piano Quintet (Classic FM Disc of the Week) and the Complete Piano Concertos of Ernst Krenek (Sunday Times Best Recordings of 2016)." (Gary Bills-Geddes)

Sky Statement lists 'Romance icon Dilip Kumarâs most famous on-screen pairings', including

Dilip Kumar & Waheeda Rehman
She was the yin to his yang. The grace to his glamour. Waheeda Rehman and Dilip gave memorable films like Aadmi, Dil Diya Dard Liya and Ram Aur Shyam, during the ’60s. While Ram Aur Shyam was an all-out entertainer, Aadmi and Dil Diya Dard Liya dwelled on the dark recesses of a lover’s heart. “Waheeda Rehman was wonderfully sprightly in Ram Aur Shyam and equally intense in Dil Diya Dard Liya,” thus described Dilip his co-star in his book. Dil Diya Dard Liya, based on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, hinged on hurt and hate, aided by Naushad’s soulful tunes like Phir teri kahani yaad aayee, Koi sagar dil ko behlata nahin.  

Stylist has a lovely selection of Christmas poems, including Anne Brontë's 'Music On Christmas Morning'. Britain on Page and Screen has a brief post on the possible connection between Norton Conyers and Jane Eyre.