More than just classroom classics

Fans of classic novels adapted into comics will be glad to hear the following, as reported by Associated Press.

Hundreds of literary classics adapted and illustrated as comics in the pages of "Classics Illustrated" are going digital.
Comics purveyor Comixology said Wednesday it made a deal with Trajectory Inc. to bring the entire 120-issue run of "Classics Illustrated" to its digital storefront within several months, with the first titles to include adaptations of H.G. Well's "The War of the Worlds," James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans" and Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre," among others.
The adaptions were originally published from 1941 through 1971, first as "Classic Comics" before adopting the current title in 1947. Publisher Albert Kanter decided to adapt the works into comic form in a bid to introduce young readers to the classics.

The Teton Valley News has an article on a more conventional, schoolroom kind of approach to classic novels and banning reading certain books such as Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya.

There is an alternative novel to “Bless Me, Ultima,” but students opting to read the alternative would not have in-class discussions or the same in-depth analysis of the text. The alternate proposed was Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.”
“As a department,” said Pence, “we chose “Wuthering Heights” because it was a classic novel that we didn’t think anyone would raise an objection to reading.”
Diane Green, another English teacher at Teton High, elaborated saying it is, “fair to say it’s clean. Is that the standard we want to use for selecting literature?” (Jason Suder)

Yes, Wuthering Heights is clean: killed puppies, abused women, etc. Aseptic. We do like the fact that it's being read, but it being 'clean' would be the right argument for it. (And why would a novel need to be 'clean' to be readable anyway?).

The Telegraph also discusses the classics in the schoolroom.

My mother’s “home readers’’ list – not her set texts, but what she was expected to read in her own time – issued by her South Wales grammar school in 1950, featured Sir Walter Scott and the Brontës as a warm-up. It would terrify her granddaughter, who studied The Go-Between and other emaciated volumes for AS level. (Allison Pearson)

The Spectator reviews John Sutherland's A Little History of Literature where

He refers to the ‘Great Tradition’ (without crediting Leavis) and donates Conrad’s place in it to the Brontës. Yadda yadda. All this may look like nitpicking, but what I mean to get at is that this is best used as a guidebook rather than a work of reference. (Sam Leith)

The Auburn Villager features local author Marian Carcache, who recalls her mother's reading habits:

When she was a very young child, Carcache remembers her mother becoming immersed in “Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë and “Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier, and she found herself amazed that anything could make her mother sit down and relax.
“My momma was like white lightning, running around cleaning her house, and later mine, but when she was reading those books, I just remember her being enthralled by them,” Carcache said. “I think it somehow transmitted to me that writing must be a mighty powerful thing for it to have my mother calm down and actually read. I think that’s why I wanted to be a writer.” (Allison Blankenship)

Wochenblatt (Germany) recommends an audiobook of Jane Eyre.

Kaufen Sie sich dieses Hörbuch, ja, Sie lesen richtig, ein Hörbuch. Nicht irgendeines, sondern genau dieses: Jane Eyre, ein Roman von Charlotte Brontë, gelesen von der wunderbaren Sophie Rois. Und sie sind geheilt, oder schon so tief unten, dass ich Ihnen leider nicht helfen kann. (Karl M. Sibelius) (Translation)

Salon also mentions Jane Eyre in an article wondering why 'we love loooong novels'.

Much of the special appeal of a good long novel is rooted in the imaginative dynamics of reading fiction — assuming, that is, that you’re reading for the particular form of pleasure I’m celebrating here. The moment a reader turns to the first page of any novel, an intricate dance begins. “Do I believe this?” might be the first thing the reader asks. “Do I care?” is surely, then, the second. A character and a conflict are the most reliable way to lure the reader further into the story, but a setting, if skillfully evoked, can do the job, too: David Copperfield’s cold stepfather, Jane Eyre’s stifled pride, the glittering ballrooms of Tolstoy’s Russia, the threat posed to Middle-earth. Gradually, the words on the page stop being words on the page and seem to enter our minds as wholly formed sights and sounds and feelings. (Laura Miller)

A columnist from The Heights doesn't really like the novel but enjoyed Cary Fukunaga's take on it.

One of Hollywood’s latest literary renditions, Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre, is actually one of my favorite literary cinema spins, despite the fact that I really disliked Charlotte Brontë’s magnum opus (yes, I prefer Emily Brontë). He used panoramic views of the English moors to evoke the romantic elements, and the camera focuses on meaningful details such as the way in which a character clears his throat or clasps her hands. In so doing, Fukunaga was able to show the audience all the major plot lines and character back-stories in only 120 minutes by mostly telling the story in a series of flashbacks. This is definitely an instance where cinema actually conveyed the true meaning of the novel as a visual experience, which is one of the benefits of literature in film: an experiential immersion for the mind and senses. (Tiffany Ashtoncourt)

Metro gives 3 stars out of 5 to Bridget Christie's A Bic for Her.

The title refers to an old Bic marketing campaign rooted in less enlightened times – ergonomically designed pens for feminine hands and in pastel shades ‘to get us out of our moods’.
A nice flight of fancy that imagines what the Brontës would do with such a device follows but generally her take on the issues feels a little obvious and curiously out of date. . . (Sharon Lougher)

The Craven Herald vindicates Charles Dickens as part of the literary heritage of Yorkshire too.

[Clair Challenor-Chadwick, managing director of Harrogate’s specialist fundraising and marketing company, Cause UK] said: “[A rare 1844 specially bound edition of A Christmas Carol] is currently housed at York University and this will be the first official outing. “It’s important as many people in Yorkshire get to see it as it’s a remarkable legacy to one of the most seminal books in history. Dickens deserves to be part of Yorkshire’s literary heritage, just as the Brontës or Bram Stoker.”

Bob Duckett looks back to the time when Bradford's Public Library used to publish books in The Telegraph and Argus.

The first title I did was The Siege of Bradford. It was based on a rare pamphlet in the stock of the Library. We got a historian from York’s Castle Museum to write an introduction, a student on placement to do a modern-day text to accompany the gothicky facsimile of the 1643 original.
Elvira provided some maps, Anthea Bickley of the Museum’s Service provided some illustrations and a super coloured picture of a battle scene for the cover. The Siege sold like hot cakes and was quickly reprinted.
This was followed by Brother in the Shadow, an anthology of stories and cartoons by that black sheep of the Bronte family, Branwell. 

Interesting Literature shares 'Ten Interesting Facts about Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights'.