Praying with Napoleon

The Irish Times reviews the poetry book Five Fifty Five by Maura Dooley:

The passage of time is central, “We are only here a minute” (Blink) as relatives and friends jostle beside a vast number of writers and literary characters, all part of Dooley’s family, living and dead, “today, I open a beaten copy/ of The Novels of the Brontë Sisters (Pilot 1947), only thing left of my Grandmother’s time on earth . . . ”  (Martina Evans)

More Ireland. "Fascinating" literary destinations across Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland World:

Brontë Homeland, Banbridge

Located in Co Down, just 10 miles from Banbridge, lies the old cobblestone cottage of Patrick Brontë, born on March 17, 1777. Patrick’s three daughters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne went on to become very successful and well known writers, with books such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre renowned English classics. Although Charlotte was the only sibling to have visited the island of Ireland, fans of the authors can visit the Brontë Homeland, witnessing where the family began with Patrick, who was born in the small dwelling. The cottage is just one stop on the 10 mile route. Tourists can also visit Drumballyroney Church on Church Hill Road, where Patrick delivered his first sermon after his studies at Cambridge University, or the small school where he taught, which still stands to this day. For more information, go to visitarmagh.com, (Rachel Black)

The upcoming Napoleon film by Ridley Scott triggers this article by the BBC:

Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars loomed large in the minds of British people of the period and beyond. Cartoonists were obsessed with him. He is in the background of Jane Austen's novels. Pride and Prejudice, which was published in 1813, for example, features the militia that was to repel the expected invasion by Napoleon. Charlotte Brontë owned a fragment of Napoleon's original coffin, given to her by her tutor in Brussels. (Neil Armstrong)

More info about that and other Napoleonic Brontë connections can be found in this old post of ours. 

NPR publishes the first part of an interview with Vanessa Zoltan:

All four of her grandparents survived the Nazi concentration camps, and it shaped so much of their lives and, as a result, hers. She writes about it in her new memoir, Praying with Jane Eyre. And no, Jane Eyre doesn't have anything to do with the Holocaust, but they are both integral parts of Zoltan's life.

For her, the idea of God didn't survive the horrors of the Holocaust, so she has had to find a different kind of spiritual center. And she found it in literature — specifically Jane Eyre. (Rachel Martin)

The Times recommends a TV series:

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Prime Video

Sigourney Weaver stars in this seven-part adaptation of Holly Ringland’s darkly romantic novel about young Alice (Alyla Browne), who goes to live with her grandmother, June (Weaver), on her flower farm in rural Australia. (It’s called Thornfield, Jane Eyre fans.)  (Julia Raeside)

Lost Coast Output looks for heroines:

All of which got me thinking about more modern, not-quite-epic heroines. On the fictional side, I’d name Jane Eyre, Hermione Granger, Ellen Ripley, Lisbeth Salander, Buffy Summers, Katniss Everdeen. (Barry Evans)

The Brontë Parsonage features in this LoveMoney slideshow: 

The Brontë parsonage, Yorkshire, UK

When their mother Maria died in 1821, the children's aunt Elizabeth came to look after the family. And while over the years the sisters, spent time abroad working as teachers and governesses, they called the Parsonage home all their lives and all of their key novels were written here, including Charlotte Brontë's masterwork, Jane Eyre and Emily's only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature.

Sadly the home was dogged by tragedy. Branwell, their brother, died of tuberculosis in September 1848 after a battle with addiction, followed by Emily, also of TB, in 1848. Anne passed away in 1849 and Charlotte in 1855. Their father, Patrick Brontë, outlived the whole family, dying at the age of 84 in his own bed in the parsonage.

After his death, the parsonage was bought in 1928 for $3,877 (£3k) by Sir James Roberts. It was he who converted it into The Brontë Parsonage Museum and gave it to the Brontë Society. Henry Bonnell of Philadelphia bequeathed his own collection to the society in 1926, and it was installed in the parsonage when it opened as a museum, along with other loaned and donated items. The mahogany desk at which Charlotte wrote her novels was donated anonymously to the museum in 2011. ( Kim Easton-Smith)

Diario de Cádiz (Spain) alerts to a special selling of the old catalogue of a local (and historical) bookstore:

En un primer vistazo, nos llama la atención las llamativas portadas de aquellos títulos de Reno, una colección que fue editada por el sello G.P. (Germán Plaza) y se hicieron muy famosos en los años 60 ya que suponían una especie de libros de bolsillos, baratos y que combinaban a autores nuevos con figuras de las letras como Hemingway, Aldous Huxley, Emily Brontë, William Faulkner o Isaaac Asimov, entre otros muchos. Libros que se caracterizaban en su portada por tener a un reno mirando hacia un lado. (T. G.) (
Translation)

For your pleasure, on the right you have the cover of the 1969 Wuthering Heights edition.

Polska Newsweek (Poland) thinks that holidays are the "opium of the workers":

To cios zadany naszym Bergmanom, Wajdom, Beckettom i siostrom Brontë. To żart z naszej wrodzonej powagi, parada radości przed udręczonymi oczami tych, co dawno zapomnieli, że brzuch może rozboleć również ze śmiechu. Najwyższy czas powiedzieć o tym głośno: urlop jest tylko po to, żeby było nam trudniej w życiu. (Katarzyna Kasia) (Translation)

Local Italian screenings of Emily in Abruzzo Live. AnneBrontë.org posts about "The Baptism Of Emily Brontë, And The Mystery Of Her Name".

Finally, an alert for today, August 21. In Moneglia, Italy, a concert

Dame Genovesi: Armonie d’in…canto

Tesori di Liguria – Moneglia Classica

21 agosto alle ore 21:15

In the programme, the piece Days of Beauty by  Ola Gjeilo (the text is from Emily Brontë's poem When days of beauty deck the earth).