Bridget Jones's Diary: A Novel by Helen Fielding (English) Paperback Book

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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.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher 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, Bridget Jones's Diary has touched a raw nerve with millions of readers the world round. Read it and laugh—before you cry, "Bridget Jones is me "

Back Cover

Meet Bridget Jones-a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could: a. lose 7 pounds b. stop smoking c. develop Inner Poise "129 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)..." Bridget Jones's Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget's permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement-a year in which she 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. Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and-like millions of readers the world round-you'll find yourself shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!"

Author Biography

Helen Fielding is the internationally bestselling author of Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. She lives in England.

Review Quote

"Screamingly funny!" -- USA Today "Bridget Jones is channeling something so universal and (horrifyingly) familiar that readers will giggle and sigh with collective delight." -- Elle "Fielding . . . has rummaged all too knowingly through the bedrooms, closets, hearts, and minds of women everywhere." -- Glamour "Hilarious and poignant." -- The Washington Post "Bridget Jones's diary has made her the best friend of hundreds of thousands of women." -- The New York Times "A brilliant comic creation. Even men will laugh." -- Salman Rushdie

Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION Single, thirty-something career woman Bridget Jones has taken the best-seller lists by storm -- much to her creator''s surprise -- and entered the English language and psyche. As Newsweek put it, "Ally McBeal better watch her scrawny little back -- Bridget Jones is coming to America." Too thin and upwardly mobile, Ally nevertheless shares with Bridget an obsessive, slightly paranoid preoccupation with her love life (or lack thereof), which proves the point: Bridget lives in all of us. She is every woman who has ever looked in the mirror and groaned, resolved to Do Something About It (whether via gym membership, slashing caloric intake, or marshaling Inner Resources), and kicked off the new program in a fattening or embarrassingly public manner. As Helen Fielding puts it for this Guide, "Bridget''s battling with two different ideas. One is the image of the Cosmo Girl, that she should be living this great, independent life full of friends and glamorous dinner parties. The second is the old fashioned idea of failure: that if you''re not married by thirty, you''ll die alone and be found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian." So what''ll it be: tragic, barren spinsterhood, or relegation to the dull, diaper-and-coordinated-pasta-container-filled realm of the Smug Marrieds? Take the following quiz to see where you fit on the Bridget-O-Meter. Have you ever: realized cellulite is creation of fiendish, misogynist extraterrestrial force in grips of which female earthlings are helpless (or entertained similar, late-night theory) [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY not heard doorbell rung by attractive man owing to proximity of industrial-strength hairdryer to ear? [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY had genuine concern about whereabouts of missing friend tempered by gratification at possessing perfect outfit for funeral? [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY calculated likelihood of dying alone, in bad underwear [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY found more than four pairs of black pantyhose -- each unwearable for a different reason -- in drawer at any one time? [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY served guests food of a color not existing in nature? (Add five points if color is blue; one point per half-hour period between 8:30 and the hour at which dinner typically materializes; two points if consistently tempted to impress guests with food cannot pronounce.) [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY checked phone messages more than six times an hour in any four-day period following initial sexual encounter? [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY been late to first day on job because of two+ hours spent on optimum hair/make-up/outfit combo? (Add one point if ensemble still turned out to be dead wrong. Add two points if punctuality continues to prove elusive.) [ ] NEVER [ ] OCCASIONALLY [ ] FREQUENTLY Each "never" answer is worth one point; each "occasionally" worth two points; each "frequently" worth three points. If you score over 25, you may be Bridget -- unlike Helen Fielding, who says firmly, "No, I''m not Bridget. I don''t smoke or drink, and I''m a virgin." Nonetheless, her hilarious account of the miseries and triumphs of one very modern woman makes Fielding a spokesperson for all of us. PRAISE "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 "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 "This juicy diary tells the truth with a verve as appealing to men on Mars as it is to Venusian women. A." -- Entertainment Weekly "Newspaper columnist Fielding''s first effort, a bestseller in Britain, lives up to the hype: This year in the life of a single women is closely observed and laugh-out-loud funny . . . Fielding''s diarist raises prickly insecurities to an art form, turns bad men into good anecdotes, and shows that it is possible to have both a keen eye for irony and a generous heart." -- Kirkus Reviews "Even men will laugh." --Salman Rushdie "Good-bye Rules Girls, hello Singletons . . . Endearingly engaging." -- The New York Times Book Review "Fielding . . . has rummaged all too knowingly through the bedrooms, closets, hearts and minds of women everywhere." -- Glamour ABOUT HELEN FIELDING Helen Fielding was born in an industrial town in the north of England, studied at Oxford University, and went on to work in television at the BBC. Her first novel, Cause Celeb , was based on her experience while filming documentaries in Africa for Comic Relief. She now lives in London, after a spell as a newspaper journalist, and is hard at work on the sequel to Bridget Jones''s Diary . She is also working on the screenplay for the book, which is being made into a feature film by the producers of Four Weddings and a Funeral . Surely you know better than to ask whether she''s married. A CONVERSATION WITH HELEN FIELDING Did anything in particular strike you about the reaction of American readers? I was very surprised that the book took off in America. Before I left, there was an open letter in the paper saying "Don''t go there, they won''t get it, Americans don''t understand irony and self-deprecation." There''s a strong culture of self-improvement in America, which is both good and bad. The idea of getting up at five and whizzing from the gym to the board meeting, of getting your bottom down to size and suddenly deciding your soul needs work. I think it''s rather a joyless way of being for women, but it seems to have infected us on a global scale. I think that''s what people latched on to most. Why did you write Bridget as a diary? The best advice I ever had about writing was to do it as if you were writing for a friend. The diary form''s very good for that, very direct and intimate. Because it''s an imaginary character, you can hide behind a persona. It also allows you to write the sort of shameful thoughts that everyone has but no one wants to admit to, since you''re not trying to make anyone like you. A diary is an outlet for your most private thoughts, a very personal way of writing. And that feeling of peeping behind a curtain at someone''s else''s life is good for a reader. Will the sequel also be in diary form? Yes. What percentage of your readership do you think is male? I have no idea, but I do know that there seem to more male readers now. I think lots of people have been given it by their girlfriends, who say, "If you want to understand how women''s minds work, read this." When I was writing the column, many men wrote in who thought Bridget was real. One wrote a letter to the editor which read: "Dear Sir, I would quite like to shag Bridget Jones. Could you please let me have her phone number? Many thanks. Yours faithfully." It was quite formal. Have men actually learned from it? Smug Marrieds have, because nobody asks me whether I''m married any more. And no more patronizing comments from my married friends; their attitudes really have changed. It sounds rude to go to a Smug Married and say, "How''s your marriage going, still having sex?", but not to go up to a Singleton and say, "How''s your love life?" It''s great if people realize that there isn''t just one way to live. That''s an old-fashioned concept, and I think it''s losing its grip on us. Life in cities is very similar all over the world, and people do tend to live in urban families as much as in nuclear ones. They''re not worse off or better off; the point is that it''s no longer abnormal to be single. One of the pleasures of reading Bridget is the vocabulary you invented. Do you have a favorite word or phrase? I''m very pleased about the word "singleton," which of course wasn''t my word. A friend made it up for a party: "singleton''s in one hotel, marrieds in another!" "Spinster" is horrible, with connotations of spinning wheels failure. "Singleton''s" a good word, and it applies to both men and women Any new coinages? Yes, "mentionitis." It''s that thing where you can tell someone has a crush on someone because their name keeps coming up in the conversation, completely irrelevantly. In the event that Bridget joins the ranks of the Marrieds, what aspects of matrimony would you like to tackle? I''m not sure whether she''ll do that, but it''s an interesting area. I''m going to look at the reason why men and women do find it difficult to be together, as roles change. Jane Austen was also writing about dating, but in her day the rules were very clear, whereas now it''s a quagmire of bluff and counterbluff. Everyone''s so busy playing it cool, discussing the next maneuver with their friends, it a miracle that people manage to get together at all. Is smugness an inevitable component of married life? No, not at all. I just think that it''s very easy for one group of people to decide that their way of living is the right way, and it''s always a mistake for people to do that. No one ever knows what''s around the corner.

Excerpt from Book

January: An Exceptionally Bad Start Sunday 1 January 129 lbs. (but post-Christmas), alcohol units 14 (but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year''s Day), cigarettes 22, calories 5424. Food consumed today: 2 pkts Emmenthal cheese slices 14 cold new potatoes 2 Bloody Marys (count as food as contain Worcester sauce and tomatoes) 1/3 Ciabatta loaf with Brie coriander leaves--1/2 packet 12 Milk Tray (best to get rid of all Christmas confectionery in one go and make fresh start tomorrow) 13 cocktail sticks securing cheese and pineapple Portion Una Alconbury''s turkey curry, peas and bananas Portion Una Alconbury''s Raspberry Surprise made with Bourbon biscuits, tinned raspberries, eight gallons of whipped cream, decorated with glac

Details ISBN014028009X Author Helen Fielding Short Title BRIDGET JONESS DIARY Pages 288 Publisher Penguin Books Language English ISBN-10 014028009X ISBN-13 9780140280098 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 1999 Publication Date 1999-06-30 Residence London, ENK Birth 1958 Affiliation The School of Education, Nottingham Imprint Penguin Books Subtitle A Novel DOI 10.1604/9780140280098 Audience General/Trade We've got this

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