The knobhead with a food twist

Broadway.com chats with Maxine Linehan about her solo piece Brontë. Portrait of Charlotte by William Luce, now on stage in New York.

Woman's Hour (BBC Radio 4) discusses Summer Reads: Feminist Classics:

From old favourites to the pioneering feminist writers of the 60s to current writers. Katy Guest, Literary Editor of the Independent on Sunday and novelist Joanna Briscoe discuss.

Katy Guest is obviously not a Jane Eyre fan:

Mr Rochester/Christian Grey both knobheads but "it's OK because they're emotionally damaged..."

Austin's Culture Map talks about 'Dish Lit', Austinite (from Austin, TX) section:

Classic literature has the Brontë sisters, and chick lit with a food twist, or “chick food-lit,” has the Kelso sisters. As the creators, writers and editors behind Dish Lit , a new online fiction series for foodies and Austinites alike, the sisters Kelso — Laura and Stirling — are making their mark on the Austin literary and food scene. (Tavaner Sullivan)

The Times of India publishes several freedom-related quotes, including a classical one by Charlotte Brontë:

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will. (Jane Eyre)

The Edmonton Fringe Festival opens tomorrow and St. Albert Gazette recommends several shows including:

There is a lot more than literature revealing itself in A Brontë Burlesque. St. Albert choreographer Andrea Gilborn created those sexy moves while SACT alumnus Al Gadowsky guides the show as stage manager. (Anna Borowiecki)

The OUPBlog interviews the singer and author Suzzy Roche (who will lead a discussion about Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth next August 21 at Bryant Park, NY):

Which author do you wish had been your 7th grade English teacher?Charlotte Brontë.

As much as we like Charlotte, we don't think she was particularly good as a teacher, though. Providence Journal reviews Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick:

The story is reminiscent of "Wuthering Heights.". The obsessive passion that governs behavior mirrors that classic. Charlie is not Heathcliff, although both men are sexy, mysterious, driven, skilled, close to nature, and above all, memorable. (Mandy Twaddell)

We Love Soaps is listing the greatest soap opera couples:

Quint & Nola From Guiding Light.Quint and Nola were instant fan favorites who captivated viewers wondering when they would finally get it right all the while enjoying Nola fantasies like Wuthering Heights and Casablanca. Brown and Tylo played the odd couple to perfection. (Roger Newcomb)

Reluctant Habits posts a transcription of The Bat Segundo Show interviewing the author Katie Kitamura about her latest book Gone to the Forest:

Correspondent: (...) And then I read a reference to “Sargasso weed,” which made me say, “Oh! Maybe this is sort of a Jena Rhys/Wide Sargasso Sea response to Naipaul.” And I’m wondering about this. Because there are certainly a lot of similarities to A Bend in the River. You have, of course, the unnamed country, the rebellion, the subjugation of women, a not so bright condescending young heir. You also, however, feature this vicious volcano, a dying father, and a terrible gang rape. And so I must ask you, first and foremost, was this at any point intended as a Jean Rhys-like response to Naipaul? How was A Bend in the Rivera starting point for this book in any way? Kitamura: I read A Bend in the River before I started writing the book. I don’t think it was necessarily formulated as a response to it directly, although I like that reading very much. And I would love to think that I’d written a Jean Rhys-like response to it. I mean, I think partially the reason you get that sense of Jean Rhys against Naipaul is because the book is trying to write from the fragments of this long legacy of colonial literature, in particular. And Jean Rhys, more generally, is a writer I admire incredibly. Not just Wide Sargasso Sea, but also all the other novels. So her prose style, her directness, her sense of melancholy — I think courage is a word that could easily sound sentimental in the context of fiction, but there’s incredibly courageous fiction in writing about women. So, yeah, it’s not direct, but it’s probably in there in some way. (Edward Champion)

Garner News also mentions Wide Sargasso Sea on a list of retellings of classic tales (although Jean Rhys's novel is not a retelling):

Here is Rhys’s answer to Jane Eyre. In the novel she struggled with for years, Rhys brings to life the mad woman in the attic who burns down Rochester’s home. Antoinette Cosway is a Creole woman married to an Englishman she doesn’t know and wrenched from the only home she has ever known, haunted by the ghosts of her past and the intensity of her husband’s desire for her. 

The Telegraph & Argus reviews the recently published autobiography of Lord Asa Briggs, Special Relationships. We don't know if the book features some of his experiences as president of the Brontë Society from 1987 until 1996 or his flirtations with Brontë scholarship in the fifties.

Emma Clayton writes in the same newspaper about the Scarborough Flyer, a restored vintage steam-hauled train. Talking about Scarborough:

Eighty miles from her Haworth home, Anne Brontë is buried in the town, overlooking the sea. Sick with consumption, Anne was brought to Scarborough by her sister, Charlotte, to take in the fresh sea air, but she died in the town in May, 1849. She was 29, not 28 as it says on her gravestone in St Mary’s Church cemetery.

Nota Bene interviews the editor, poet and fiction writer Rebecca Wolff:

Who is your favorite hero/heroine of fiction? Why?
[RW:] I'm sorry to be so obvious but it's Jane Eyre. For her intense consciousness, her address to the reader, her trueness to her own odd self as meticulously crafted by Charlotte. How she changes, deepens, falls in love.

Classics///Hits and Elizabeth Coult review The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Książka na półce i sprawydomowe (in Polish) and Obsesiva y compulsiva (in Spanish) post about Agnes Grey; Charlene of Bookish Whimsy guest posts at Alison Can Read about Jane Eyre retellings (incidentally, she adds three more retellings on her own blog); the author of one of the books mentioned, Marta Acosta, author of Dark Companion is interviewed on The Book Reaper; The Happy Nashes posts about Jane Eyre 2011; Joanna Campbell Slan, author of Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles has a couple of blog appearances: on My Book, The Movie she dreamcasts an adaptation of the novel and on The Blotter she publishes an unpublished prologue for her novel; Ouachita Parish Public Library reviews A Breath of Eyre; the original novel gets reviewed on Novellarella and Tik daudz grāmatu, tik maz laika (in Latvian); Fick's posts an illustration inspired by the novel.