大象传媒

Helen Fielding's iconic 1996 novel of life as a single thirty-something woman in London.

"Have bought recipe book by Marco Pierre White. At last understand the simple difference between home cooking and restaurant food. As Marco says, it is all to do with concentration of taste. One must make real stock by boiling up large pans of fish bones, chicken carcasses, etc., then freeze them in form of ice-stockcubes. Then cooking to Michelin star standard becomes as easy as making shepherd鈥檚 pie: easier, in fact, as do not need to peel potatoes, merely confit them in goose fat. Cannot believe have not realized this before."

Bridget Jones begins the new year full of resolutions. She pledges in her diary to drink less, smoke less, lose weight, find a new job, stay away from unsuitable men and learn to programme the VCR. But her resolve is tested by the horrors of attending dinner parties with the "smug marrieds", the confusing behaviour of her charming rogue of a boss Daniel Cleaver, and her increasingly embarrassing encounters with Human Rights lawyer Mark Darcy.

Bridget Jones's Diary started life as a weekly column in the pages of The Independent in 1995, when Fielding worked on the news desk. Helen鈥檚 column chronicled the life and antics of fictional Bridget Jones as a thirty-something single woman in London trying to make sense of life and love. It was first published as a novel in 1996 and has gone on to sell more than 15 million copies worldwide and has been adapted into a series of films.

Read by Sally Phillips
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Mair Bosworth and Mary Ward-Lowery