Rare is the Wuthering Heights adaptation that fails to ruffle the feathers of the Brontë faithful. Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film was criticised for its grit and gloom while Emerald Fennell’s new version, which arrives in cinemas on Valentine’s Day, was described as “aggressively provocative” after test screenings. Perhaps now is the time to return to the source material. In the audioverse, there have already been readings by Michael Kitchener, Daniel Massey, Juliet Stevenson, Patricia Routledge and Joanne Froggatt, though I favour this 2020 edition narrated by Aimee Lou Wood, of Sex Education and The White Lotus fame.

Set in Yorkshire, Emily Brontë’s tempestuous novel opens with Mr Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, visiting his sullen landlord, Heathcliff, at his remote farmhouse where he gets snowed in. Bedding down for the night, he stumbles upon the diaries of the late Catherine Earnshaw, who writes of her love for Heathcliff, an orphan brought by her father to live with the family. Later Mr Lockwood has a nightmare in which the ghost of Catherine begs to be let in through the window (a scene immortalised in song by Kate Bush). The following day he returns to Thrushcross Grange where he asks the housekeeper, Nellie, to tell him about the Earnshaws. Nellie shares a dark tale of abuse, revenge and doomed love.

Wood breathes fresh life into this tempestuous novel, capturing Nellie’s gossipy tone and the early wildness of Catherine and Heathcliff. As circumstances pull these once inseparable youngsters apart, that wild abandon curdles into desolation and discord that is carried down the generations.

Available via Penguin Audio, 13hr 58min

Further listening

Simply More
Cynthia Erivo, Macmillan, 3hr 43 min
The singer, actor and star of Wicked tells of her path to stardom and shares tips on how to stay focused on your goals in a book that is part memoir, part empowerment manual. Read by the author.

The Fathers
John Niven, Canongate, 11hr 16 min
Two new fathers meet in a maternity ward in this satirical novel from the Kill Your Friends author. Jada, a petty criminal and Dan, a successful TV writer, each resolve to make changes in order to do right by their infant sons. Angus King reads.