Product Description

Bridget Jones's Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud account of a year in the life of a thirty-something Singleton on a permanent doomed quest for self-improvement. Caught between the joys of Singleton fun, and the fear of dying alone and being found three weeks later half eaten by an Alsatian; tortured by Smug Married friends asking, "How's your love life" with lascivious, yet patronizing leers, Bridget resolves to reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult and learn to program the VCR. With a blend of flighty charm, existential gloom, and endearing self-deprecation, the diary has touched a raw nerve with millions of readers the world round. Read it, laugh and crash your head onto the table before you cry, "Bridget Jones is me!"

"Screamingly funny." --USA Today

"Bridget Jones is channeling something so universal and (horrifyingly) familiar that readers will giggle and sigh with collective delight." --Elle

"Hilarious but poignant." --The Washington Post

"This juicy diary tells the truth with a verve as appealing to men on Mars as it is to Venusian women. A." --Entertainment Weekly

"An unforgettably droll character." --Newsweek

"Bridget's voice is dead-on . . . will cause readers to drop the book, grope frantically for the phone and read it out loud to their best girlfriends." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Fielding. . .has rummaged all too knowingly through the bedrooms, closets, hearts and minds of women everywhere." --Glamour

"Good-bye Rules Girls, hello Singletons...Endearingly engaging." --The New York Times Book Review

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117126 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-24
• Released on: 1999-05-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review
In the course of the year recorded in Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget confides her hopes, her dreams, and her monstrously fluctuating poundage, not to mention her consumption of 5277 cigarettes and "Fat units 3457 (approx.) (hideous in every way)." In 365 days, she gains 74 pounds. On the other hand, she loses 72! There is also the unspoken New Year's resolution--the quest for the right man. Alas, here Bridget goes severely off course when she has an affair with her charming cad of a boss. But who would be without their e-mail flirtation focused on a short black skirt? The boss even contends that it is so short as to be nonexistent.

At the beginning of Helen Fielding's exceptionally funny second novel, the thirtyish publishing puffette is suffering from postholiday stress syndrome but determined to find Inner Peace and poise. Bridget will, for instance, "get up straight away when wake up in mornings." Now if only she can survive the party her mother has tricked her into--a suburban fest full of "Smug Marrieds" professing concern for her and her fellow "Singletons"--she'll have made a good start. As far as she's concerned, "We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, 'How's your marriage going? Still having sex?'"

This is only the first of many disgraces Bridget will suffer in her year of performance anxiety (at work and at play, though less often in bed) and living through other people's "emotional fuckwittage." Her twin-set-wearing suburban mother, for instance, suddenly becomes a chat-show hostess and unrepentant adulteress, while our heroine herself spends half the time overdosing on Chardonnay and feeling like "a tragic freak." Bridget Jones's Diary began as a column in the London Independent and struck a chord with readers of all sexes and sizes. In strokes simultaneously broad and subtle, Helen Fielding reveals the lighter side of despair, self-doubt, and obsession, and also satirizes everything from self-help books (they don't sound half as sensible to Bridget when she's sober) to feng shui, Cosmopolitan-style. She is the Nancy Mitford of the 1990s, and it's impossible not to root for her endearing heroine. On the other hand, one can only hope that Bridget will continue to screw up and tell us all about it for years and books to come. --Kerry Fried

From Publishers Weekly
A huge success in England, this marvelously funny debut novel had its genesis in a column Fielding writes for a London newspaper. It's the purported diary, complete with daily entries of calories consumed, cigarettes smoked, "alcohol units" imbibed and other unsuitable obsessions, of a year in the life of a bright London 30-something who deplores male "fuckwittage" while pining for a steady boyfriend. As dogged at making resolutions for self-improvement as she is irrepressibly irreverent, Bridget also would like to have someone to show the folks back home and their friends, who make "tick-tock" noises at her to evoke the motion of the biological clock. Bridget is knowing, obviously attractive but never too convinced of the fact, and prone ever to fear the worst. In the case of her mother, who becomes involved with a shady Portuguese real estate operator and is about to be arrested for fraud, she's probably quite right. In the case of her boss, Daniel, who sends sexy e-mail messages but really plans to marry someone else, she's a tad blind. And in the case of glamorous lawyer Mark Darcy, whom her parents want her to marry, she turns out to be way off the mark. ("It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting 'Cathy!' and banging your head against a tree.") It's hard to say how the English frame of reference will travel. But, since Bridget reads Susan Faludi and thinks of Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon as role models, it just might. In any case, it's hard to imagine a funnier book appearing anywhere this year. Major ad/promo; first serial to Vogue; BOMC and QPB main selections; simultaneous Random House audio; author tour. (July) FYI: A movie is in the works from Working Title, the team that produced Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In the course of one year, Bridget Jones will consume 11,090,265 calories, smoke 5,277 cigarettes, and write a series of delightfully funny diary entries. This will be no ordinary year in the life of this single, on-the-cusp-of-30 Londoner. She's going to keep at least one New Year's resolution, have dates with two boyfriends, create legendary cooking disasters, and be seen on national TV going up a firehouse poleAinstead of the planned dramatic slide down. If that isn't enough, her mom is getting a new career as the host of the TV program Suddenly Single and will disappear with a Portuguese gigolo. Supported by friends and confused by family, Bridget emerges, if not triumphant, at least hopeful about life and love. Already a best seller in Britain and winner of the Publishing News Book of the Year Award, this book should be equally popular in the United States. Recommended for all fiction collections.
-AJan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., NC
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

The epitome of brit chik lit?
Having read this 'must-read' when it first was published, I was an immediate Bridget Jones fan. Now, years later, I've re-read it, and have to wonder why in modern society, it is still considered imperative for a woman to find a man? Helen Fielding herself has admitted that Bridget Jones Diary is based on Pride and Prejudice. In fact, she wrote it whilst watching BBC's version of the Jane Austen classic. Nothing wrong with that. Except - it was more important for Elizabeth Bennet to find a husband (or else risk not surviving, literally) than it is for Bridget Jones, a modern girl in a developed world.

Having gotten that bit of feminism off my back, I must say that the book is good. It has become the epitome of the chik lit, with many laugh-out-loud moments.

Bridget Jones Diary
The book was a little more used than I anticipated, but I still enjoyed reading it again.

Hilarious, and quenches the romantic thirst!
I'm a huge fan of the movie. When I finally decided to read the book, boy was I sorry I waited so long!! I love this book, it is so clever, and totally satisfying for those of us who love all the unnecessary cheesiness and romance that a love story can provide. It starts out slow, but once you get going, you wont' want to go to sleep!!