Every bit as real as Jane Eyre

Let's start with a very easy question from The Times' Daily Quiz:

2 For her debut single, Kate Bush adapted which Emily Brontë novel into a No 1 hit? (Olav Bjortomt)

Still in connection with The Times, Penguin recommends '23 of the best literary podcasts for book lovers', including

Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon
A weekly podcast focusing on culture and ideas by the Times Literary Supplement.  Inspired by Oscar Wilde’s question, ‘With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?’ expect interrogation on everything from Brontë to Reddit.

We would have added the Bonnets at Dawn podcast to the list, particularly now that Elizabeth Gaskell's House is in possession of an 1880 edition of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall thanks to the crowdfunding organised by them.

The Sun Daily features writer Sara Collins:

A fan of novels written by the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen, Sarah Collins (below) soon realised that the world she so loved in these books did not have a place for someone like her, a black woman of Jamaican descent, whose family had fled Kingston after the unrest following the 1976 elections and settled in Grand Cayman.
She then began writing a book based on her love for Gothic fiction. Her debut novel, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, was shortlisted for the 2016 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. (S. Indra Sathiabalan)

A contributor to Parents recommends 'The Top 10 Books for Moms Who Don't Have Time to Read' and recalls the fact that she

was the girl at sleep-away camp reading "Jane Eyre" on the scratchy, wool blanket while my bunkmates strung my counselors' bras from the rafters. (Zibby Owens)

Our advice on this subject is not a list but a simple sentence: read whatever you feel like reading.

Women Write About Comics discusses 'the literary origins of the vampire myth' focusing on the 'feminine touch'.

But not quite all vampire stories from this period were written by men. Some notable female novelists used the vampire motif, if only in passing. In Frankenstein (1818), Mary Shelley has the protagonist compare his monstrous creation to “my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.” Emily Brontë uses similar imagery in Wuthering Heights (1847) when Nelly asks whether Heathcliff is “a ghoul or a vampire.” (Doris V. Sutherland)

Tiny Mix Tapes quotes Charlotte Brontë in a review of Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next.

Let’s hope we find love. Because we heave through bed sheets at middays, feel weights and debts of all our bad days pressing our sternums, gauzing our throats. We have lost. We will lose. How can we want past that loss? Charlotte Brontë wrote:”The evils that now and then wring a groan from my heart lie in my position not that I am a single woman and likely to remain a single woman, but because I am a lonely woman and likely to be lonely.” Or, Ari: “I can’t fake another smile/ I can’t fake like I’m alright.” (Frank Falisi)

The Ringer has 'An Ode to [Mars Rover] Opportunity' and how most of us have been moved by its 'death'.

I know Oppy wasn’t sentient, but when I read that her right front wheel had a damaged motor, so she had to spend much of her time on Mars driving backward, I still choke up a little. Oppy is every bit as real as Jane Eyre or a Pixar character, but you’d never argue that people should stop having feelings about literature and art because the tools of literature and art can be exploited by brand narratives. We need to be more alert to the ways in which tech works to dehumanize us and cheat us, sure. But that means being alert to moments when those things are actually happening; it doesn’t mean cauterizing every human quirk that’s susceptible to being preyed on by Silicon Valley. (Brian Phillips)

Time Out (Spain) selects five pictures from the Balthus exhibition in Madrid. The first of which is Cathy's Toilette.

1. 'El aseo de Cathy'. Se exhibió en su primera exposición individual, en la Galerie Pierre de París, en 1934. Parte de una litografía que Balthus había hecho para una edición ilustrada de 'Cumbres borrascosas', de Emily Brontë, que representa esa escena en la que Heathcliff se ve consumido por los celos mientras Cathy se arregla para su pretendiente. En la pintura, Heathcliff tiene los rasgos de Balthus y Cathy los de su querida Antoinette, un amor no correspondido por el que el pintor trató de quitarse la vida en una ocasión. Además, Cathy aparece desnuda bajo una bata de seda abierta, mostrando un cuerpo porcelanoso que tiene el sexo inmaduro de una niña. De ahí el escándalo. (Josep Lambies) (Translation)

El País (Spain) comments on the same painting.

Está también la famosa La toilette de Cathy, escena de uno de sus dibujos para una edición de Cumbres borrascosas donde el artista —perdón: el artesano— se autorretrata como Heathcliff, reconcomido de deseo y frustración ante el desnudo de su primer amor en pose copiada de Cranach vistiéndose para salir con otro. En los años treinta, donde los surrealistas difundían por París su culto a Sade, a Freud y al poder liberador del sueño, Balthus decía que usaba la provocación erótica para “despertar” a una sociedad convencional y conformista. Más adelante, cuando se le mencionaba ese erotismo difuso y ambiguo, sostenía que nunca aspiró a otra cosa ni tuvo otra misión que pintar lo que era hermoso: “Los gatos, los paisajes, la tierra, los frutos, las flores y, por supuesto, a mis queridos ángeles, que son como reflejos idealizados de lo divino”. Se trataba de “acercarse al misterio de la infancia, a su languidez de límites imprecisos. Lo que yo quería pintar era el secreto del alma y la tensión oscura y a la vez luminosa de su capullo aún sin abrir del todo”. (Ignacio Vidal-Folch) (Translation)

SeacoastOnline recommends Jane Eyre among other books 'that will warm your heart'.