Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason: Picador Collection

"Praise for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"
Today Show's second Book Club Selection!
""Mad About the Boy" is not only sharp and humorous, despite its heroine's aged circumstances, but also snappily written, observationally astute and at times genuinely moving. Fielding has somehow pulled off the neat trick of holding to her initial premise - single woman looks for romance - while allowing her heroine to grow up into someone funnier and more interesting that she was before. Who knew middle age could be so eventful? . . . Fielding beautifully conveys the constant seesaw of emotions a parent feels toward the young and demanding: one minute overwhelming love, the next minute overwhelming desire to lock oneself in the bathroom with a bottle of gin . . . We get some good long narration, but large chunks of the book come in diary form, introduced by select statistics of the day, hilariously expanded to reflect grown-up Bridget's concerns.... Its big heart, incisive observations and zippy pace . . . make the prospect of middle age not so bad at all. It is possible I cried a little at the end, but then, as Bridget might say: am sucker for happy endings."
--Sarah Lyall, "The New York Times Book Review"
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"With "Bridget Jones's Diary, "Helen Fielding created a new female archetype. Now she's brought Bridget back to conquer the 21st century. (Rule No. 1: No texting while drunk) . . . Texting and Twitter play an outsize role in the new novel, which finds Bridget solo-parenting two young children and seeking romance after a decade under Mark Darcy's chivalric guard . . . The diary form itself pays homage to Austen, lifting Fielding's work above many pale imitations. Austen's heroines aren't writers, but Fielding's is . . . Austen's plots are marriage plots, and ultimately so are "Bridget"'s. But Fielding's novels (like Austen's, and like "Sex and the City "and "Girls") also revolve around friendship--something at which Bridget excels. Nor is the char

"Sharp and humorous. . . . Snappily written, observationally astute. . . . Genuinely moving." --"The New York Times Book Review"
"Bridget's back! And as irrepressible as ever. . . . Sweet, clever, and funny." --"People"
"A clever mashup of texts, emails, tweets, and diary entries from Bridget, a bighearted person who brings hearty humor to the ordinary vicissitudes of life. . . . Fielding's wit is generous and forgiving." --"Chicago Tribune"
"Fielding's comic gifts . . . are once again on shimmering exhibit." --"Elle"
"Tender and comic." --"The New Yorker"
"Feels like visiting with your funniest friend." --"Entertainment Weekly"
"Delightful. . . . Bridget Jones was a character made for the Internet, from her confessional tone to her casual creation of memes." --"Los Angeles Times"
"Sweet and satisfying. . . . Bridget still has her posse of funny friends and her shelf of self-help books." --"USA Today"
"Helen has always had a sharp eye for the obsessions and neuroses of our times, a talent much in evidence here--her [Bridget's] liability rests very much on her believability." --Anna Wintour, editor in chief of "Vogue"
"Very funny." --"The Boston Globe
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"Sweet, clever and funny. Yay Bridget!" --"People "(five stars)
"Fielding has somehow pulled off the neat trick of holding to her initial premise--single woman looks for romance--while allowing her heroine to grow up into someone funnier and more interesting than she was before. . . . Mad About the Boy, is not only sharp and humorous . . . but also snappily written, obser-vationally astute and at times genuinely moving. . . . Bridget-the-parent is like a character in a Russian novel, lurching constantly from ecstasy to despair, sometimes in the course of a single paragraph. . . . Its big heart, incisive observations, nice sentences, vivid characters and zippy pace make it a book you could happily spend the night with. It is possib