Book Club: Read ‘Wuthering Heights,’ by Emily Brontë, With the Book Review

Welcome to the Book Review Book Club! Every month, we select a book to discuss with our readers. Last month, we read “The Hounding,” by Xenobe Purvis. (You can also go back and listen to our episodes on “What We Can Know,” “Hamnet,” and “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.”)

2026 may have just started, but we’re already thinking about another year. Specifically, the year 1801. Why? Because it’s “Wuthering Heights” winter and we’re flashing back to Emily Brontë’s 19th-century moors!

For the uninitiated, “Wuthering Heights” recounts the tale of two star-crossed lovers: Catherine, the wild daughter of a respected aristocratic family, and Heathcliff, an orphan whom Catherine’s father brings home unexpectedly after a trip. While Catherine’s brother and mother denigrate Heathcliff, depriving him of an education and forcing him into a servant-like role, Catherine forms an intense, almost spiritual bond with her family’s new charge.

Despite their deep connection, however, she scoffs at the idea of marrying him. Instead, she marries the scion of a nearby wealthy family — a decision that leaves Catherine yearning for her true love, Heathcliff pursuing a multigenerational quest for revenge and everybody else in their orbit on a dramatic path to calamity.

Brontë’s classic has long been a favorite among readers, and this February the novel is getting a new film adaptation directed by Emerald Fennell, and starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. The movie has catapulted “Wuthering Heights” back into the zeitgeist and reinspired frenzy for Brontë’s moors.

That’s why, in February, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss “Wuthering Heights.” We’ll be chatting about it on the Book Review podcast that airs on Feb. 27 and we’d love for you to join the conversation. Share your thoughts about the novel in the comments section of this article by Feb. 18, and we may mention your observations in the episode.

Here’s some related reading to get you started.

Our 1939 feature story went behind the scenes of Samuel Goldwyn’s celebrated film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” and paraphrased Emily’s equally renowned sister, Charlotte, in assessing the allure of the novel: “‘Wuthering Heights’ was hewn in a wild workshop, in the literature of the screen as in literature. And the amazing, the incredible thing is that it has come so well-hewn to its new medium. We must not say that its spirit has survived Hollywood, for that would be misinterpreted; rather that its spirit is enduring, in one medium and another, which proves that Emily Brontë’s strange and twisted novel is a true classic, ageless and imperishable.” Read the full article here.
Our 2012 article about the challenges of adapting “Wuthering Heights”: “With more than a dozen film versions, Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ is something of a cultural touchstone for ill-fated love. The title alone conjures up images of a brooding Heathcliff and a delicate Cathy clinging to each other or suffering alone on the Yorkshire moors. For many fans, the characters are synonymous with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in the 1939 movie. And yet, at least when it comes to screen adaptations, the novel may be the most misunderstood book of all time.” Read the full article here.
Our recent story about how “Wuthering Heights” is reaching a new generation of readers: “During a period of hand-wringing about young people’s reluctance to read books, readers seem to be approaching ‘Wuthering Heights’ as a collective undertaking. They are dissecting the novel in book clubs and group chats, scratching the same itch for group experiences as running clubs and board game nights. Lately, social media is teeming with testimonials from readers who are Brontë-maxxing.” Read the full article here.
LitHub’s 2018 article rounding up what famous authors (like Virginia Woolf, Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion, and more) have said about “Wuthering Heights.” You can read the full story here.