The Nature of Haunting

Christianity Today interviews Karen Swallow Prior about a new book collection she is editing:

David Moore: Tell us a bit about how this series came to life.
Prior: I wish I could take credit for the vision that birthed this series, but the fact is that B&H Publishing approached me with the idea. All I had to do was say yes. Then choose the books. Then do the writing. Choosing just six titles may be the hardest part! Those choices are based on a few factors. We are selecting only from works that are already in the public domain. I’m choosing works I’m particularly knowledgeable and passionate about, so that does mean there is more of an emphasis on British literature as that is my area of expertise. The next titles to be released include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, followed by two more classics after that.

The Spectator continues looking into its own archives:

Among the fairly entertaining book reviews of the time was one by Bel Mooney, which the literary editor, A.N.Wilson, altered to read as an insult to Clive James. Wilson’s sacking by Chancellor subsequently cost the editor his job. Rebecca West threatened legal action when her wartime book on Yugoslavia was described by Alastair Forbes as ‘Balkan balderdash’. When reviewing a collection of Spectator and New Statesman articles, Auberon Waugh wrote that he couldn't think 'of a single reason why anyone should buy it’. In the previous century, more significantly, Spectator reviewers had been dismissive of some of the works of Dickens (especially Bleak House) and the Brontë sisters (Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre). (Simon Courtauld)

101 Reasons why The Examiner loves living in Yorkshire:

58. Yorkshire's literary history is an impressive one, being the home to the Brontë sisters, the inspiration behind Dracula and a place of significant growth for The Lord of the Rings writer J.R.R Tolkien. (Charles Gray)

The Atlantic talks about London's National Theatre online viewing:

Nearly 1 million people watched Jane Eyre the following week, about as many as had previously seen any of the NT Live cinema broadcasts. (Daniel Pollack-Pelzner)

The Philadelphia Inquirer tries to imagine the world after this pandemic:

Here’s a funny meme circulating on social media showing four pictures: the artist, and then the artist after social distancing; the artist during quarantine, and then the artist after quarantine. The joke? They’re all the same picture — a Jane Eyre-type figure painting away as if nothing has changed.

The Sunderland Echo and a virtual pub quiz:

8) Name either the singer or the author, who are connected by their work, who respectively turned 60 and 200 on July 30, 2018. (Tony Gillan)

And the Wall Street Journal explores 'new and improved' 2020 flowers.

From the cool cup-shaped leaves of Baptima to an old-fashioned rose named Emily Brontë, Michelle Slatalla explores unique combinations created with these new blooms. 

More about flowers in The New York Times:

Numerous other guides would follow, and the mania for flower symbology was seen in literature and art, too: in the novels of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters; in the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose female subjects were made to look as lush and as vibrant as the flowers populating his backgrounds. (Amanda Fortini)

Hero Magazine revisits Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater:

Before Byron and Branwell Brontë, before the beatniks and Hunter S. Thompson, there was Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, the literary blueprint which inspired countless confessional, drug-fueled memoirs. (Finn Blythe)

The Independent (Ireland) interviews the poet Paula Meehan:

I've just put down a book I couldn't put down. A Ghost in the Throat, by the poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa, a book as steeped in the nature of haunting as Wuthering Heights

La Voix du Nord (France) interviews another poet, Jacqueline Habert

Les vanneaux sont des personnages récurrents des œuvres publiées par Jacqueline Habert. Elle l’explique par la lecture des Hauts de Hurlevent d’Emily Brontë, qui l’a marquée étant jeune, et par ses balades nocturnes dans son village de Conteville. « Il y a quarante ans, il y avait des vanneaux partout. Malheureusement, on en voit de moins en moins », explique Jacqueline Habert. (D.D.) (Translation)

L'Express asks some writers about children literature:

 BD, contes, romans... une trentaine d'écrivains nous ont fait part de ce qu'ils aimaient lire enfants, et de ce qu'il faudrait lire aux nôtres.
Ungerer, Dumas, Hergé, Giono, Kipling, Emily Brontë, la Comtesse de Ségur... Autant de recommandations de lectures par une pléiade d'auteurs réunis par L'Express. (Marianne Payot) (Translation)

A fragment of Jane Eyre was read in a reading marathon celebrated in Mexican social networks according to El Sol de San Luis. TuttoAbruzzo and Il Giornal (Italy) quotes from Charlotte Brontë. Glas Slavonije (Croatian) interviews local scholar Valentina Radoš:

Ako čitam za zabavu i opuštanje, uvijek se rado vraćam britanskom 19. stoljeću, omiljene su mi Jane Austen, sestre Brontë, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, i to mi sa svakim ponovljenim čitanjem pruža neki osjećaj sigurnosti. Uz fizička knjižna izdanja puno čitam i online. (Translation)

Libreriamo (Italy) suggests books to re-read, like Wuthering Heights:

La trama illustra la storia di Heathcliff, del suo amore per Catherine, e di come questa passione sia difatti distruttiva per gelosia e spirito di vendetta. I temi principali, in realtà, sono la violenza e gli atteggiamenti immaturi di un uomo, incapace di amare per davvero, che coi suoi comportamenti sfocia nell’odio. (Translation)

or simply read it for the first time:

Tra i libri più amati è stato più volte citato “Cime tempestose”. Si tratta di un romanzo selvaggio, originale, possente, si leggeva in una recensione della ‘North American Review’, apparsa nel dicembre del 1848, e se la riuscita di un romanzo dovesse essere misurata unicamente sulla sua capacità evocativa, allora “Wuthering Heights” può essere considerata una delle migliori opere mai scritte in inglese. (Translation)

El Sudcaliforniano (in Spanish) recommends quarantine readings:

En una pequeña selección de clásicos, tenemos a: Drácula, una historia de vampiros, de Bram Stoker; Dos crímenes, de Jorge Ibargüengoitia, un autor mexicano con un humor muy particular, una historia familiar típica mexicana; El amor en los tiempos del cólera, de Gabriel García Márquez, y 100 años de soledad, también de García Márquez; Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Bronte, los personajes principales pueden resultar complicados, complejos, con una historia muy toxica, la psicología de cada personaje es muy interesante. (Katz Cubero) (Translation)

15a20 (México) or BigBang! also recommends it:

Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. El amor y desamor nos pueden llevar a extremos terribles, como le pasó a Heathcliff. Esta novela es básica, seas romántica o no.  (Claudia González Alvarado) (Translation)

Una historia de amor, cargada de dramatismo y tragedia, se cuenta en Cumbres Borrascosas, un clásico de la literatura inglesa que fue escrito por Emily Jane Brontë. (Translation)

Finally, the Brontë Parsonage Museum shares a video of the Museum's garden:

Dear friends and followers, we know you are missing Haworth, so here are a few moments spent in the Parsonage garden earlier this week. The gate may be locked, but behind it, Mother Nature, ably-assisted by our garden volunteers*, is serenely doing her thing.