Stranger Things about the Brontës (cue eyeroll)

Today is Branwell Brontë's 205th birthday.

The Sydney Morning Herald reviews the performances of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall at the Roslyn Packer Theater:

It was epically ambitious. Not only has playwright Emme Hoy condensed Anne Brontë’s 500-page novel down to less than three hours of drama, she had to resolve how to dramatise Brontë’s quirky structure, whereby the book’s middle half is an elongated flashback in the form of a journal, with few of the countless characters overlapping between the “present” and this past. (...)

Ultimately, however, Hoy’s adaptation works better than [Jessica] Arthur’s production. Too often there’s an awkwardness and a stiltedness to the performances, especially in the first half, when Hoy takes the book’s comedic dimension closer to Jane Austen than Brontë. This requires a much lighter touch from the actors and director not to seem amateurish on occasion. It all improves markedly in the second half when the mood is more gothic, the story edgier and the drama heightened. (John Shand)ç

Broadway World announces the European premiere of The Brontës: A Musical (first performed in 2017 in New York). It will happen this August in London:

Sibling rivalry. Heartbreak. Addiction. Patriarchy. REALLY bad weather. Discover how literature's most volatile sibling hood penned their way to infamy against all odds in this new musical.

Prudencia Productions, a brand new female-led theatre company, make their theatrical debut with the world premiere of 'The Brontës: A Musical', written by Katie Palmer, Lucas Tahiruzzaman Syed & Sarah Zeigler, directed/produced by Victoria Hadel, with musical direction from Griffin Jenkins, movement by Laura Dawn Platt, technical direction by Connor Hadel and produced by Megan Henson.

The Mail on Sunday lists Stranger Things about Kate Bush (yes... we are rolling our eyes too):

Learning she shared a birthday with the writer Emily Brontë, an 18-year-old Kate penned the rhapsodic Wuthering Heights in tribute to the novel of the same name.
That devotion is now set in stone – literally. In 2018, Kate wrote a poem about the novel and its author, which was inscribed into stone on the Yorkshire Moors near the Brontës’ Haworth parsonage. (Jo MacFarlane)

The Kate Bush fever lingers on: Tom's Guide, The Courier, The Sunday Times, HITC, Oxford Mail, NRK (Norway), COPE (Spain), Criterio (Colombia), Kombini Biinge (France), Il Post (Italy)... 

The same tabloid takes us to New York's wonders: 

The New York Public Library has a must-see – and free – Treasures exhibition, a beautifully random collection of objects, including the original A. A. Milne Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore, Kanga and Piglet toys (with not a Disney logo in sight, so make sure any little ’uns know what to expect), Charles Dickens’s and Charlotte Brontë’s writing desks (one grand, one very modest), Nijinsky’s dancing shoes and other artifacts, both personal and political. (Sarah Turner)

Laura Hackett complains in The Sunday Times about the removal of the poet Wilfred Owen from the OCR requirements:

OCR has not cut all the big names. Wordsworth, Byron, Keats and Anne and Emily Brontë are still on the list. And many of the new poets are worthy additions to the syllabus.

Summer reads lists in The Guardian:

 I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys by Miranda Seymour

This new biography of the Dominica-born author of Wide Sargasso Sea charts her course from the Caribbean to London and Devon, via a tumultuous affair and two marriages. Seymour is careful to separate the writer from her fictional protagonists: “At the centre of Rhys’s life stood her writing, a resource that is entirely absent from the lives of the women she described in her novels.” (Justine Jordan, David Shariatmadari and Imogen Russell Williams)

BuzzFeed lists 'black girl magic' books:

Travel to Ethiopia in Lauren Blackwood’s YA novel, Within These Wicked Walls. The book features teen protagonist Andromeda who is a debtera (an exorcist hired to rid homes of the evil eye). Since Andromeda is unlicensed, her only option is to work for a rich Patron who doesn't mind that she doesn’t have her debtera license. Her new boss, Magnus Rochester, comes with a lot of secrets, and things get way more complicated when Andromeda realizes she’s falling for him. Both engaging and chilling, Within These Wicket Walls, is a nod to the classic novel, Jane Eyre. (Mariette Williams)

Evrensel (Turkey) explores the connection between the English weather and literature: 

Ne var ki güneş, yüzünü Britanya halklarından esirgemeye devam ediyordu. Victoria Dönemi Romantiklerinin romanlarında alabildiğine keder vardı. Brontë Kardeşler’in büyüğü Charlotte, ölümsüz eseri Jane Eyre’de iki farklı sınıftan insanın yaşadığı aşkı anlatırken dinin toplum üzerindeki tahakkümüne, sınıf çatışmasına ve ataerkil toplum yapısına derin bir melankoliyle mercek tutuyor, küçük kardeş Emily ise daha sonra pek çokları tarafından “aşkı en iyi anlatan roman” yakıştırması yapılacak Uğultulu Tepeler’inde sisli İngiltere kırsalının rüzgarlı bayırlarında yeşeren tutkulu ama bir o kadar hastalıklı, ve elbette içinde sınıf çatışması barındıran, bir aşkı bütün dramıyla gözler önüne seriyordu. Ortaklaştıkları tek konunun bir ömür süren bir aşk anlatısı olduğunu söylemek yanlış olmayacağı gibi, Kolombiyalı Usta Yazar Marquez’in Kolera Günlerinde Aşk’ı düşünüldüğünde Brontë’nin kaleminin coğrafyadan doğru yüklendiği elemi görmek kolaylaşacaktır. (Bilge su Yildirim) (Translation)

La Voz de Galicia (Spain) interviews the singer Soleá Morente on her new album, Aurora:

Jorge Lamas: ¿Cómo es musicalmente este disco?

S.M.: Como me suele ocurrir en todos los proyectos, trato de que dialoguen diferentes referentes muy separados entre sí estilísticamente. En este disco bebo de Beach House, Cocteau Twins, The War on Drugs o Mogwai por una parte, y por otra está esa influencia más flamenca, como la colaboración de mi hermana Estrella. Una vez más es un punto de encuentro donde pongo en relación diferentes referencias musicales y literarias ya que estaba por aquel momento leyendo a las hermanas Brontë, a Emily Dickinson y, al mismo tiempo, estaba con el Cancionero Popular de Rodrigo Marín. Dialogan para mí artistas que no coinciden en el tiempo, pero sí en la sensibilidad y manera de expresarse. (Translation)

Le Nouvel Observateur (France) interviews the film director Park Chan-Wook:

J'ai beaucoup lu les sœurs Brontë à l'adolescence, rappelle-t-il. La littérature m'a construit. (Nicholas Schaller) (Translation)

Finally, La Dernière Heure Les Sports publishes some pictures of the "brand new" (but quite not finished) Place des Soeurs Brontë in Brussels:

Du sable, des bûches, des plantes : piétonnisée, la rue des Braves de Koekelberg devient la place des Sœurs Brontë.

Ce samedi, riverains et associations ont installé des infrastructures provisoires dans la rue perpendiculaire au parc Élisabeth. Une étape temporaire avant la création d’une nouvelle place koekelbergeoise.

Il y avait du monde ce samedi dans la rue des Braves de Koekelberg. Petite artère perpendiculaire au parc Élisabeth. Il faut dire que ce n’est pas tous les jours qu’on piétonnise une rue à l’aide de sacs de sable, de plantes, de troncs d’arbres.

"Il était temps de faire quelque chose. C’était une rue avec beaucoup de trafic de transit. C’est désormais un espace convivial, et il y aura des animations", sourit Charlie, riverain en tenue de travail, aux côtés d’une vingtaine de "braves" volontaires, locaux et membres d’associations. (Translation)

From First Page to Last interviews the author Damian Dibben:

Jane Temson - If you could only read one book for the rest of your life which book would it be?
It would either be Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. What magic was going on in that vicarage in Howath? (sic) They are both works of genius, peerless pieces of storytelling, crammed with vital, fascinating characters. The emotion explored by the Brontës, and then felt by us readers, is awe-inspiring. I read each at least every other year and they jostle for first and second place in my affections.