A sonorous sweetness and a spring-like levity

The Scotsman reviews The Unthanks' album Lines, giving it 4 stars.

Part 3: Emily Brontë sets ten poems by the Wuthering Heights author to music composed by McNally on Brontë’s own piano in the Haworth Parsonage museum after visitors left for the day. The restored piano has to be played gently, all the better to convey the tender delicacy of her verse. There is a graceful, courtly movement to the piano melody of She Dried Her Tears and They Did Smile, ancient folk vibrations to the subtle harmonies of The Night Is Darkening Round Me, a sonorous sweetness to Lines and a spring-like levity to I’m Happiest When Most Away. These sensitive renderings are currently available to hear as a sound installation in the Parsonage or, for those who can’t make it to Yorkshire, as part of this lovingly packaged triple set of self-styled “medium players”. (Fiona Shepherd)

Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden) reviews it briefly too.

Unthanks, Lines part 1-3 (22 februari). Kate Bush slog igenom med sig egen tolkning av Emily Brontës "Wuthering heights", Genesis album "Wind & wuthering" genomsyrades också av Brontës närvaro. Nu när Emily Brontë fyllt 200 år kommer även en trippel-cd med systrarna Rachel och Becky Unthank, inspelad i Brontës gamla hem. Vackert, känsligt, nästan lite spöklikt. (Jan Andersson) (Translation)

Slough and South Bucks Observer reviews Hetty Feather at Theatre Royal Windsor

Meanwhile, Phoebe Thomas’ endearing portrayal of the charismatic Hetty bears a striking resemblance to a young Jane Eyre, displaying much of the courage, hope and feistiness that made Jane such a memorable character. (Amy Horsfield)

Writers in the Storm shares some recommendations towards making dominant female characters likeable. Such as this:

Pit Them Against Impossible Odds
Katniss is fighting the Capital. Jane Eyre is fighting society and a vindictive aunt. Lisbeth Salander is fighting corruption in the secret police and the Russian mob. Everyone cheers for the underdog because they’re fighting for something the reader can cheer on. (Lisa Hall-Wilson)

Ligne Claire (France) reviews the French translation of Jane by Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramon K. Pérez.

Un joli mélo qui se dramatise sur la fin mais dont on est sûr du happy-end comme dans le roman. Les grandes lignes sont au rendez-vous. C’est un beau roman, c’est une belle histoire. Il ne faut pas y voir autre chose. L’adaptation bien copieuse se prêtait à cette mise à jour. On la lit d’une traite, tout à l’écoute des péripéties qui vont marquer la belle Jane avant qu’elle ne trouve un bonheur bien mérité avec la Bête. Édifiant et bon enfant. (Translation)

iNews doesn't agree with Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends being hailed as 'the voice of a new generation'.

But the resistance to normalising lesbianism is still a long way from being overcome. Several reviews of Conversations with Friends, widely hailed as announcing the voice of a new generation, emphasise the book’s originality in interrogating the meaning of friendship in the contemporary era – where your girl buddy may double up as a lover. Yet readers of the novel could be forgiven for thinking they had strayed into a 19th-century Gothic novel such as Jane Eyre, given the focus of its central plot on a heterosexual romance between a neurotic young woman and a handsome and physically imposing troubled strong and silent type. The romantic relationship between the book’s protagonist Frances and her close female friend Bobbi barely gets a look in. Encounters between them are not described with anything approaching the rapturous eroticism of lines such as: “He put his hand on my waist and I felt my whole body lift toward him”. This very old-fashioned description emphasises a binary approach to sex in hackneyed terms of male dominance and female submission.

The Bookseller has an article 'On reading, publishing and being working class'.

My mother can read, but only just. For her the idea of reading for pleasure is a mystery. But she has always understood that if you can penetrate that mystery, then important things lie beyond. I grew up in a house unfurnished by books and I knew a lot more about "Blue Peter" than Enid Blyton. But my mum always tried to help us read and she would foster it whenever she had the chance, despite not really knowing what she was doing. Comics and Asterix got us started, and when school started asking us to read some classics she would order them from what she called "the nice ladies at WHSmith".
And so I started getting into some reading on my own. Or sort of. I read Thomas Hardy and Wuthering Heights to impress my middle-class girlfriend and at her suggestion (and backed up by The The’s "Infected" video) I read The Wasteland. I read Seamus Heaney for my A levels and in his poetry found a lifelong inspiration. And to Elaine O'Neill, the teacher who read us The Turbulent Term of Tike Tyler, I will be forever grateful (best twist ever – eat your heart out, "The Sixth Sense"). (Noel Murphy)

De Groene Amsterdammer (Netherlands) interviews writer Thomas Rueb.

Jane Austen of Charlotte Brontë? Brontë. (Laura Hoogenraad)

A contributor to The N'West Iowa Review is not enjoying Wuthering Heights:

I have recently started reading for pleasure again. My reading rate is lacking compared to what it was. Now I am lucky to sit down and read two whole pages. Normally it is reduced to one. The Great American Read inspired me because I saw an embarrassing number of books I had not read. I thought I was well read but I found that belief to be lacking too. I guess my devouring "Fear Street," Edgar Allan Poe, "Dragonlance," Anne Rice and Shakespeare in my younger years was not up to par with the Great American Read. I am on a quest to read everything on the list now. Right now I am struggling through “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë. Yuck. (Lana Bradstream)

Before listing the '5 Most Brooding Zodiac Signs', YourTango explains what 'brooding' is exactly.

Brooding is such a romance novel description. How many times is the hero described as brooding? I’m fairly certain that Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is brooding, and so is Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. We like our tragic heroes to be misunderstood.
There are a few ways we can define brooding: someone who shows deep unhappiness of thought; sullenly thoughtful, contemplative, musing, moody, meditative; a person who appears slightly menacing. In other words, if you’re brooding, you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, a painful past, overwhelming emotional challenges, and are the strong silent type. (Christine Schoenwald)

Book Riot recommends '50 Must-Read Big Books of More Than 500 Pages', including Villette. Jane Eyre's Library (Spain) shows a Korean edition of Jane Eyre. Interminable Rambling posts about a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.