Helen Fielding

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BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: Bridget Jones The Edge Of Reason: Description:
Fans of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary will recall that at the end of that sly and funny version of Pride and Prejudice, singleton heroine Bridget landed her Mr. Darcy at last--Mark Darcy, that is. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason picks up four weeks later, and already the honeymoon is over. In addition to discovering that the man of her dreams votes conservative, left-leaning Bridget is also feeling just a mite uncomfortable with the realities of sharing bed and board with another person: V. complicated actually having man in house as cannot freely spend requisite amount of time in bathroom or turn into gas chamber as conscious of other person late for work, desperate for pee etc.; also disturbed by Mark folding up underpants at night, rendering it strangely embarrassing now simply to keep all own clothes in pile on floor. But all of these problems pale to insignificance with the arrival on the scene of Rebecca, a beautiful, man-hunting arch-nemesis with "thighs like a baby giraffe" and absolutely no girlfriend code of ethics when it comes to poaching another woman's man. Before long, Rebecca's manipulations, Bridget's own insecurities, and a string of misunderstandings (starting with a naked Filipino boy in Mark Darcy's bed and ending with a suggestive valentine from Bridget's dry cleaner) result in "128 lbs. (good), alcohol units 0 (excellent), cigarettes 5 (a pleasant, healthy number), no. times driven past Mark Darcy's house 2 (v.g.), no. of times looked up Mark Darcy's name in phone book to prove still exists 18 (v.g.), 1471 calls 12 (better), no. of phone calls from Mark 0 (tragic). Fortunately, Bridget has plenty of other problems to distract her. Her mother has returned from a trip to Kenya with a young Masai in tow--to her father's consternation; her best friends Jude, Shazzer, and Tom are all trapped in dating hell themselves; her apartment is in shambles thanks to a dotty carpenter; an unreliable ex-boyfriend has just reentered her life; and now someone is sending Bridget death threats--could it be Mark Darcy? If Bridget Jones's Diary was a modern riff on Pride and Prejudice, its sequel borrows several themes and devices (not to mention a section heading) from another Austen novel, Persuasion. And as in Austen's fiction, here the journey is the destination. A happy ending for Bridget and her pals is a foregone conclusion; how they get there, however, will have you on the edge of your chair--if you haven't already fallen off of it laughing. --Alix Wilber

Title: Bridget Jones Diary: Description:
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

Title: Bridget Jones's Diary: Description:
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

Title: Bridget Joness Diary: Description:
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

Title: Olivia Joules And The Overactive Imagination: Description:
Where do you go after Bridget Jones? Creator Helen Fielding's response has been to go somewhere completely different. Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, Fielding's fourth novel, is a spy-thriller whose sassy heroine, the eponymous Joules, doesn't fret about weight gain, laddering her tights or Chardonnay and fags in the manner of her predecessor. Oh no--Olivia, once plain old Rachel Pixley from Worksop, is a self-made, go-getting journalist for the Sunday Times and Elan magazine with, or so her colleagues at the ST maintain, "an overactive imagination" and an impeccable gift for languages. Both of these come in handy when Olivia is despatched to Miami to cover a face-cream launch, meets the enigmatic Pierre Ferramo, an international playboy, and finds herself on the scene of an al-Qaeda bomb attack. (Question: where, exactly, do Elsie and Edward rustle up that tray of tea from?) Cue meetings with suitably disreputable people (wannabe film stars, Arab carpet vendors, spies, terrorists) in an array of exotic locales (LA, Honduras, Egypt) as Olivia goes on the trail of the terrorists and, utterly implausibly, is recruited to MI6 (they can't get the staff nowadays). A ridiculous plot is not exactly a hanging offence in a spy-thriller, which is probably just as well here. Sadly, for Fielding, however, we do inhabit a post-Austin-Powers universe and Olivia, a walking digest of Susan Jeffers platitudes, is hard to take: seriously or otherwise. None of it is very funny, nor thrilling. Olivia is more Nancy Drew than Modesty Blaise or, crucially, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. Still, you can have great fun playing Bond-bingo with the clichés. Family wiped out in freak accident. Tick. Greasy henchmen. Tick. Gadgets. Tick. Charismatic al-Qaeda villain, who to Olivia's amusement, admittedly, really does use the sentences: "It is a great delicacy in our land" and "Evidently, you are connoisseur of great beauty. As am I." (Alas, "I expect you to die, Ms Joules" and "He's inside the belly of that steel beast", do not materialise.) Maybe there's a clue in the title; perhaps the whole shebang is intended to be taken with a huge bag of Saxo. As Scott Rich, the CIA hunk, says to Olivia as the tale closes: "Oh don't be silly, lovey. It's just a figment of your overactive imagination." If only. --Travis Elborough

Title: Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason: Description:
7:15 am Hurrah! The wilderness years are over. For four weeks and five days now have been in functional relationship with adult male thereby proving am not love pariah as previously feared. So begins The Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones' hilarious foray into the not-so-sexy realities of relationships, the laughable legions of self-help theories and a television career that would have her model "tiny shorts next to a blow-up of Fergie in gym wear". Picking up where Bridget Jones' Diary left off, everyone's favourite singleton has finally landed her love, Mark Darcy. However, she's finding--among other things--that her dreamboat is less than ideal. Aside from never doing the washing up or foraging through the isles at Tesco, Mark, it seems, has taken an interest in the viperous "jellyfish" Rebecca, who has "thighs like a baby giraffe" and a penchant for boyfriend snatching. If that isn't enough, Richard "I'm thinking bunny girl! I'm thinking Gladiator! I'm thinking canvassing MP!" Finch, Bridget's smarmy, cocaine-encrusted boss and Executive Producer of Sit Up, wants her to be the show's clown, in effect making her the arse of television. What's more, a builder who has an obsession for large, slimy fish seems to have forgotten about the hole he knocked out in her flat, putting her entire life on display for the neighbours. Not to mention a mother who wants her to go to see Ms. Saigon with a Kikuya tribesman hijacked from Kenya. Never fear, Bridge's singleton posse--Shazzer, Jude and Tom--are always a phone call away and armed with bottles of Chardonnay, packs of Silk Cut, pizza and a cornucopia of self-help literature. Whether they're decoding acronyms in singles ads (GSOH and WLTM? "Giant sore on head. Willy, limp, thin mollusc."), developing the ground-breaking "Pashima theory" or dolling out unsolicited advice, the FOBs (friends of Bridget) make up most of the comedy. Although The Edge of Reason is filled with signature B.J. manoeuvres, such as drunken Christmas card writing and wearing an unruly rubber girdle, it's a departure from the original. Throughout most of its 422 pages the plot clips at a steady rate, then, much like Bridget's train of thought, the ending skitters, careens and breaks off into two incoherent tracks--one more absurd than the other. The outcome is a metamorphosed Bridget, one more reminiscent of a British Alley McBeal than the personification of England's everywoman. --Rebekah Warren

Title: Bridget Jones : The Edge Of Reason: Description:
7:15 am Hurrah! The wilderness years are over. For four weeks and five days now have been in functional relationship with adult male thereby proving am not love pariah as previously feared. So begins The Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones' hilarious foray into the not-so-sexy realities of relationships, the laughable legions of self-help theories and a television career that would have her model "tiny shorts next to a blow-up of Fergie in gym wear". Picking up where Bridget Jones' Diary left off, everyone's favourite singleton has finally landed her love, Mark Darcy. However, she's finding--among other things--that her dreamboat is less than ideal. Aside from never doing the washing up or foraging through the isles at Tesco, Mark, it seems, has taken an interest in the viperous "jellyfish" Rebecca, who has "thighs like a baby giraffe" and a penchant for boyfriend snatching. If that isn't enough, Richard "I'm thinking bunny girl! I'm thinking Gladiator! I'm thinking canvassing MP!" Finch, Bridget's smarmy, cocaine-encrusted boss and Executive Producer of Sit Up, wants her to be the show's clown, in effect making her the arse of television. What's more, a builder who has an obsession for large, slimy fish seems to have forgotten about the hole he knocked out in her flat, putting her entire life on display for the neighbours. Not to mention a mother who wants her to go to see Ms. Saigon with a Kikuya tribesman hijacked from Kenya. Never fear, Bridge's singleton posse--Shazzer, Jude and Tom--are always a phone call away and armed with bottles of Chardonnay, packs of Silk Cut, pizza and a cornucopia of self-help literature. Whether they're decoding acronyms in singles ads (GSOH and WLTM? "Giant sore on head. Willy, limp, thin mollusc."), developing the ground-breaking "Pashima theory" or dolling out unsolicited advice, the FOBs (friends of Bridget) make up most of the comedy. Although The Edge of Reason is filled with signature B.J. manoeuvres, such as drunken Christmas card writing and wearing an unruly rubber girdle, it's a departure from the original. Throughout most of its 422 pages the plot clips at a steady rate, then, much like Bridget's train of thought, the ending skitters, careens and breaks off into two incoherent tracks--one more absurd than the other. The outcome is a metamorphosed Bridget, one more reminiscent of a British Alley McBeal than the personification of England's everywoman. --Rebekah Warren

Title: Bridget Jones's Guide To Life: Description:
No-one will be fooled by this little piece of ephemera. Bridget Jones's Guide to Life is not anything like a new Bridget Jones book. It's a revisiting of old jokes, old characters, old stories. That said, there's something curiously addictive about Helen Fielding's creation, and this bonbon should satisfy a Jones addict until the (inevitable) next full-length novel comes along. The Guide to Life is a brief (64 pages) how-to manual from the notoriously inept singleton. To wit: in her chapter on homemaking (entitled "The Fragrant Home"), Bridget gives her reader advice on the atmospheric charm of a cosy fire. "The key words here are 'in the grate.'" As to food, she largely confines herself to finding a piece of old cheese in the fridge and cutting off the mouldy bits. She does, however, get in one really useful suggestion, when she explains how to play a parlour game entitled Shag, marry or push off a cliff. The rules? "Each of the players suggests three names. The person on the player's right must then decide, if they absolutely had to shag one of them, marry another, and push another off a cliff, which it would be. It is usually best to pick three which are similar in some way." Examples: Russell Crowe, Mr Darcy, Hugh Grant. Or: Colonel Gadaffi, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Idi Amin. She then adds a caveat of typically Jonesian sensitivity: "It doesn't matter if any of them are dead as it is only a game." For those who cry foul at Helen Fielding cashing in on her phenomenal franchise, it should be noted that some of the proceeds from the book will go to Comic Relief. That's the very organisation, incidentally, that the author sends up in her non-Jones novel Cause Celeb--a smart, highly entertaining book that also makes a decent stopgap for Bridgetphiliacs. --Claire Dederer

Title: Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason: Description:
second bridget jones diary book

Title: Cause Celeb: Description:
Disillusioned by her glitzy life in London and her desirable but cruel TV-presenter boyfriend, Rosie Richardson chucks it all in and spends four years running a refugee camp in Africa. Then famine strikes in a nearby province and an influx of starving refugees threatens to overwhelm the camp. Frustrated by the cautious response of the aid agencies, Rosie decides on a drastic short-term solution. She returns to London, breaks back into the celebrity circuit and brings the celebs out to Africa for a star-studded TV emergency appeal.

Title: Cause Celeb: Description:
Having left behind a glitzy life in London, Rosie Richardson spends four years running a refugee camp in Africa. When aid agencies cautiously respond to a famine, she returns to London and breaks back into the celebrity circuit, in order to bring the stars out to Africa for a television appeal.

Title: Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason: Description:
This sequel concerns Bridget Jones, a single, girl-about-town on an optimistic but doomed quest for self-improvement. If she could just get down to 8st 7lb, stop smoking and develop inner poise, all would be resolved.

Title: Olivia Joules And The Overactive Imagination: Description:
From the white heat of Miami to the implants of LA, the glittering waters of the Caribbean to the deserts of Arabia, Olivia Joules pits herself against the forces of terror armed only with a hatpin, razor sharp wits and a very special underwired bra. Is it possible that the alluring and powerful Pierre Ferramo, with his impeccable taste and unimaginable wealth, is actually a major terrorist, bent on the western world's destruction? Or is it all just a product of Olivia Joules' overactive imagination? Join Olivia in her heart-stopping and hilarious quest to save the world in this witty, contemporary and utterly unputdownable thriller. About the Author Helen Fielding was born in Yorkshire and worked for many years in London as a newspaper and tv journalist. She has written three previous novels: Cause Celeb (1994) Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (1999) and co-wrote the screenplays for the movie of Bridget Jones's Diary and the forthcoming sequel based on The Edge of Reason. She now works full-time as a novelist and screenwriter, and lives in London and Los Angeles.

Title: Bridget Jones' Diary: Description:
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.