Bridget Jones's Diary: A Novel, Book 1

Helen Fielding

Jun 1999 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

The iconic #1 bestseller by Helen Fielding and basis for the films starring Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey and Emma Thompson. 

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!"

Ratings and reviews

Interesting enough to keep reading...the movie by far is better than the book in a million different ways. I'm never convinced that the characters in the books ever really do form a relationship. It's a bit too unrealistic.

I go back and read it every couple years.

Loved the movie too

About the author

Helen Fielding is a novelist and screenwriter best known as the creator of Bridget Jones. She is the author of the multi-million selling novels, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and Bridget Jones’s Baby, and co-writer of the screenplays of the Bridget Jones movies.  She worked for many years for the BBC and as a journalist for British newspapers including the Independent, Sunday Times, Times, and Daily Telegraph. In a survey conducted by The Guardian newspaper, Bridget Jones’s Diary was named as one of the ten novels that best defined the 20th century.