Absolutely Outstanding

This month's Chapter & Verse in Keighley News reports the upcoming activities at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

The school summer holidays have finally begun, and we’ve been enjoying the ridiculously hot weather up here at the museum.
The Parsonage, with its stone floors and thick stone walls, is usually a welcome refuge from the heat, but even we were sweltering when temperatures hit 32 degrees!
Families have been enjoying our drop-in Wild Wednesday workshops, which continue until the end of August, and are free with admission to the museum.
Coming up are workshops where you can make Paper Globes (14 August), Brontë finger puppets (August 21), and Origami Boats (August 28), and if you want to visit after hours, don’t forget our Late-Night Thursday on August 15, when the museum is open until 7.30pm, and entrance is free after 5.30pm to visitors who live in the BD22, BD21, BD20 postcode areas, and those living in Thornton.
This is a lovely thing to do with children in the summer holidays, when you don’t need to worry so much about late nights!
And another reason to visit in August is to experience our immersive installation created and conceived by award-winning children’s author and script writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce. The installation opens on August 10 and is called How My Light Is Spent.
The experience takes place in the cellar of the museum, is limited to a maximum of 15 people at a time, takes 15-20 minutes and is led by a guide. The experience is free to visitors with a museum ticket and you need to purchase your ticket prior to the experience beginning.
If you want to book ahead during the school holiday period, you can book online at bronte.org.uk-whats-on or by calling 01535 640192 on weekdays.
Frank was inspired by the story of the 70-year-old Patrick Brontë, having seen his wife and two of his children die, travelling to Manchester for a cataract operation.
After the surgery, he lay still in a darkened room for weeks to heal, being cared for by Charlotte. It was at this time that she began to write Jane Eyre.
The installation explores Patrick’s memories and imagination as he recovered from his operation.
Looking ahead to after the school holidays, our free Tuesday talk on September 3 links with the theme of the installation, as it explores this significant episode in both Patrick and Charlotte’s life in detail, and examines how this difficult time contributed to the writing of Charlotte’s most celebrated novel, Jane Eyre.
And just a few days later – on September 7 – we’re hosting an evening of conversation on the importance of nature and landscape with writer-in-residence Zaffar Kunial and novelist Michael Stewart, so book tickets if you want to hear more!
They can be booked via the website or by calling 01535 640192.

The Yorkshire Post has an article about Norton Conyers:

It was in 2004 that an astonishing discovery was made in a manor house near Ripon.
The Graham family, who have owned Norton Conyers since 1624, had suspected that a staircase to the attics was concealed somewhere inside the sprawling stately home, which has medieval origins and later additions.
The reason? Author Charlotte Brontë had visited in the 19th century, and based her most famous work, Jane Eyre, on both a legend of Norton Conyers and the house itself.
In 1839 Charlotte learned of the story of a mad woman who was confined to an attic bedroom - this grisly myth inspired the character of Mrs Rochester, and the house became the fictional Thornfield Hall.
The novel included passages describing a staircase that current owner Sir James Graham felt sure was based on one that Charlotte had seen at Norton Conyers.
He had heard older relatives talking about the hidden steps, and the Grahams eventually sought approval from English Heritage to lift floorboards in an attic room once used by servants to reveal the top of the staircase. The exit door was found behind a dresser on the main landing.
However, the staircase was in poor condition and access had to be limited for safety reasons. (Grace Newton)

Ox in a Box is enthusiastic about the Oxford Shakespeare's performances of Wuthering Heights:

 “That was absolutely outstanding,” the man behind me remarked in amazement, as we filed out of Wadham College Gardens into the quad.
And he was right. Oxford Shakespeare Company’s summer performance of Wuthering Heights blows any rival outdoor productions out of the water.
It was real, vital and emotive; as the rawness, tragedy, jealousy, rivalry, love and revenge played out
unrepentantly, and the characters laughed, growled, howled and wept in equal measure. (...)
In short, Wuthering Heights is a must, because this is story-telling at its best – unjudgemental, transportational, committed and memorable. If you watch anything this summer make sure it’s this production. You will never forget it.

The Unthanks will be live at the Cambridge Folk Festival tomorrow, August 3. Cambridge Independent talks about their latest Brontë-related record:

Most recently, part three, Emily Brontë, came about when they were approached by the Parsonage at Howarth, birthplace of the Brontë sisters, to set Emily’s poems to music for the bicentenary of her birth last year.
“Adrian, our piano player, had the privilege of being able to go and actually sit on her piano, to write the music on Emily’s piano. And then we got to go and record the songs there as well – in The Parsonage – so that was a real treat.”
Did Rachel always love the Brontës? “Well, I think everybody is a bit of a Brontë fan, you know? You can’t really pass them by, can you? It’s such a big part of our literary history and culture. But I wouldn’t say that I was an expert.” (Jude Clark)

Adresseavisen (Norway) was also fascinated after listening to a concert by The Unthanks:

Det er krevende å lage sanger av poesi, og Unthanks gjorde det ikke lett for seg med å starte med Emily Brontës «Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee».  (Translation) 

 Books for hopeless romantics in Romper:

Wuthering Heights
Reading this book as an adult was vastly different than reading it in English class freshman year of high school, which is to say, I liked it the second time around. Every page you turn contains a love story (seriously there are at least seven different romances going on) but the story between Catherine and Heathcliff on the moors (remember the moors?) is what keep readers gripped 172 years after its publication. (Grace Gallagher)

Booktrib and summer reads:

You, Me, & the Sea (HarperLuxe), by Meg Donahue
Meg Donahue’s reinvention of Wuthering Heights is set at Horseshoe Cliff, a small farm on the coast of Northern California, where Merrow Shawe lives in an idyllic setting while struggling against a not-so-idyllic backdrop of family secrets and cruelty. When mysterious and lovely Amir arrives at Horseshoe Cliff by way of India and New York City, a tale unfolds of love and danger and of finding one’s way. You’ll find yourself swept away by the setting, which is its own character in this book. (Amy Impellizeri)

Daily Voice explores the Blantyre resort in Lennox, MA:

The grandeur of the house, slightly somber from the outside, with its great baronial fireplaces in the public rooms, along with working fireplaces in eight of the guest rooms, makes a nod — albeit an anachronistic one — to English literature. Mandalay in Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca,” Thornfield Hall in Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” or Wuthering Heights in Emily Brontë’s eponymous novel all spring to mind. (Jeremy Wayne)

Fiorentina (Italy)  talks about the signing of Boateng for the Italian football club and bad boys:

E se in Dickens, come in Manzoni, i cattivi sono perfidi senza ritegno, in Cime tempestose di Emily Jane Brontë il tormentato personaggio di Heathcliff assume nella storia, contemporaneamente, il ruolo della vittima e quello del carnefice. (Ludwigzaller) (Translation)

The Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany) tries to explain to the new digital generations what a darkroom was:

„Ich verstehe nicht ganz, was in dem roten Raum geschieht“, schreibt der junge Zuschauer hilfesuchend in einem Onlineforum. Jonathan „legt ein Foto in Wasser, und das macht das Bild irgendwie klarer?“ Ist da Paranormales im Spiel? Nein, der „rote Raum“ ist keine Vorhalle zur Parallelwelt von „Stranger Things“, in der das Monster lauert, auch keine Anspielung auf Charlotte Brontës „Jane Eyre“ oder „Die Maske des Roten Todes“ von Edgar Allen Poe oder mörderische Orte im Darknet. Es handelt sich vielmehr um eine Dunkelkammer.(Ursula Scheer) (Translation)

Página 12 (Argentina) explores the latest novel by Rachel Cusk:

La narradora, Faye, es una presencia borroneada; no sabemos mucho de ella, y lo poco que sabemos indica que podría pensarse como un alter ego de Rachel Cusk. Es escritora, divorciada, vive en Londres, tiene hijxs. Con eso es suficiente. Faye nunca dice que no esté hablando de sí misma, todo lo contrario; cuando comenta una escena de Cumbres borrascosas en que Heathcliff y Cathy ven el interior de la casa de los Linton a través de la ventana, dice: “Pero ninguno ve las cosas como realmente son. Y, de igual manera, yo empezaba a ver mis propios miedos y mis propios deseos manifestándose fuera de mí, empezaba a ver en las vidas ajenas un comentario de la mía”. (Marina Yuszczuk) (Translation)

El Diario de Nathan Zuckerman (in Spanish) reviews Wuthering Heights.