Helen Fielding and the Underactive Imagination

Advantages: It can pass the time
Disadvantages: Nothing really original

...As popular as the first two were, there could never have been a third Bridget Jones book. After all, what else was there for her to do? She's caught her man, so perhaps marriage and kids, but it would have been difficult to make that funny. Think about it: "7.02 a.m. Changed baby's nappy. 7.05 a.m. Changed nappy again. How can something so small create so much waste?" It's amusing, but a year of that would have got very boring very quickly. It was time for Helen Fielding and her readers to move on. More accurately, in fact, it was time for her to go full circle. Fielding's debut novel, "Cause Celeb" was written in the standard style, without the diary format, although told largely in the first person by a female lead character. So the same style is used for "Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination". Olivia Joules is...

Soho_Black 14.08.2005 · Read review
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Review of Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination - Helen Fielding

Brilliant Book - By Helen Fieldings

Advantages: Funny, Witty Excellent Read
Disadvantages: None - i loved it

...Today - 26 April 2007, i picked up a book which is shocking cause i hate reading, and to my disbelief i realy enjoyed it. I was given Bridget Jones Diary By Helen Fielding and knew i probably would never read it. But today, i had a very long traveling day on a train so decided to take a book with me - this one. Started Reading it, and noticed that i could see Rennee Zelweggers face from the Movie Bridget Jones Diary. As i started reading it, i noticed i couldnt put it down, i read for three hours straight, til i got to my destination and three hours back til i got home. This book related alot to myself, with the weight, and i enjoyed very much reading the life of an average twenty something single female. The story was very interesting, the writer was brilliant at describing each aspect of the story and all the characters. Well...

lesleyanne18 26.04.2007 · Read review
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Review of Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

I am Bridget

Advantages: Can read it again and again, a legend
Disadvantages: None

...Bridget Jones's Diary is a novel by Helen Fielding written in 1996. The novel evolved from Helen Fielding's The Diary of Bridget Jones columns in The Independent and The Daily Telegraph and became an International success. As of 2006, the book has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and won the 1998 British Book of the year award Partly in a way, I think the reason why I loved this book, is that Bridget always reminds me of me a few years ago. What crazy, unloved and desperate you say?! No, because I was in my early 20's when I read/saw this movie but I think just about every women can relate in some way or at some point to what Bridget has been through, a bad date, feeling like you're never going to meet someone, unrequited love so it makes it all that more real to us. The book was probably one of the first generation of chic lit...

Spottydog11 29.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

Satirical Relief

Advantages: Flowing, entertaining story
Disadvantages: Black and white and shallow characterisation

...Published: 1995 Introduction I've picked up this paperback from a charity shop about 5 years ago and for some reason never read it. When in September this year my move to Mauritius became imminent, I decided it would be too naff to return it to the charity shop unread and by all means the story still seemed appealing. About the author Best known as the author of Bridget Jones' Diary and its sequels, Enlglish author Helen Fielding is also a documentarist and journalist who penned Cause Celeb as her debut novel in 1994 a good few years back before Bridget Jones' Diary (1998) and Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason (2000). The plot Our heroine, Rosie works in publicity and is well immersed in the celebrity world of London though never really fitting in. She eventually becomes disillusioned by her...

lillamarta 16.10.2008 (20.10.2008) · Read review
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Review of Cause Celeb - Helen Fielding

A Must-Read for Fielding Fanatics

Advantages: good storyline, entertaining
Disadvantages: fairly expensive

...If you liked Helen Fielding's 'Bridget Jones' Diary', you will love this, the sequel. Yes! Bridget is back and better than ever! This book became a number one bestseller for Helen Fielding and costs £6.99 from most bookshops. As you will know if you've read the first one, Bridget Jones has a self-help book obsession as well as her two life-support machines - her best friends (Jude and Shazzer). With a slightly wacky mother (as i'm sure many of us can relate to!!), Helen Fielding describes her trials and tribulations of trying to get over her ex and find a new boyfriend, in a diary form. This book is both funny and easy to relate to - really compelling. I would really recommend it....

laurajones 24.04.2001 · Read review
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Review of Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding

A Cause Worth Supporting

Advantages: One of the more realistic chick-lit novels
Disadvantages: Some of the characters feel like a warm up for later books

...Before there was Bridget Jones and her diary, Helen Fielding gave us Rosie Richardson. For some reason, "Cause Celeb" didn't hit the public consciousness in quite the same way as "Bridget Jones' Diary" did, so Fielding had to wait for the huge success she was to have. But having read the original "Bridget Jones' Diary" and enjoying it quite a lot, an investigation of Fielding's back catalogue seemed appropriate, even allowing for the disappointments that were "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" and "Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination". It is 1985, a little after "Live Aid" and Rosie Richardson is stuck in a less than perfect relationship with Oliver Marchant, a TV personality and a not terribly nice chap. Following the break up of this relationship, she decides to head out to Nambula as a relief worker in the hope...

Soho_Black 21.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of Cause Celeb - Helen Fielding

Field of yawns

Advantages: None
Disadvantages: Appalling story and acting

...Ray Kinsella is a farmer in Iowa, married to Annie and they have a child, Karin. One day, Ray is in the fields when he hears a voice: "Build it, and he will come." Initially, he thinks he must be dreaming, but the voice comes back to him, along with a vision of a baseball pitch set into part of his land. He becomes convinced that something great will happen and so ploughs one of his fields and turns it into a baseball pitch. Having spent all their savings on the pitch, the Kinsellas are now in deep financial trouble, but when a team of famous baseball players from years ago turn up to play on the pitch, Ray thinks it is all worth it. Then he starts to hear voices again, giving him further instructions. What is the point of the instructions? And will Ray be able to keep the family out of debt? I had never heard of this film before I...

sunmeilan 21.07.2007 · Read review
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Review of Field Of Dreams (DVD)

Raising Helen

Advantages: Certificate PG so it's suitable for nearly everyone
Disadvantages: The cinema is expensive and this film is very average

...This film is due on general release in the UK shortly but I thought I'd write about it as I had a sneak preview. This PG film directed by Garry Marshall stars Kate Hudson as Helen Harris, a woman who "inherits" guardianship of her nieces and nephew when her sister and brother-in-law die in an accident. Joan Cusack and John Corbett co-star. The children are played rather well by Hayden Panettiere (Audrey), Spencer Breslin (Henry) and Abigail­ Breslin (Sarah). Helen's glamourous New York modelling world is turned upside down as she tries to be a parent. Her sister Jenny already has children and can't resist interfering. Gradually the two women come to an understanding, as they also come to terms with the loss of their other sister. Jenny doesn't work and she's rather self-righteous but she's actually quite jealous of her sister...

Mel27 20.08.2004 · Read review
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Review of Raising Helen (DVD)

Fields of Gold

Advantages: You get what you pay for
Disadvantages: You pay for what you get

..., Winteringham Fields employs the top people in its profession. Chef and owner Germain Schwab has earned two Michelin stars. Only four other restaurants in the country hold this coveted honour. His head chef Robert Thompson was recently crowned Young Chef of the Year by the Craft Guild of Chefs. Winteringham Fields' reputation did daunt me before I first ate there five years ago. Pizza Express is more my thing. Would I feel comfortable among wine waiters, starched tablecloths and food from the Egon Ronay Guide's Kitchen of the Year? I've since lunched there another five or six times. Thanks to the relaxed atmosphere and friendly professionalism of the staff, I've never felt inhibited or out of place. That could also be due to the modesty of Germain Schwab himself. He avoids the media limelight so beloved of his peers such as Gordon Ramsay. This...

Silverback 01.01.2005 (31.12.2005) · Read review
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Review of Winteringham Fields (North Lincolnshire)

Helen of Troy

Advantages: Gives a Slightly Different Version of Events
Disadvantages: Is A Bit Long

...Alexandros takes pity on him and saves him bringing him up as his own son and renaming him Paris. A few years later the now grown up Paris played by Matthew Marsden, chases a stray goat into a cave. Overheated from the run he takes a sip of water and starts to feel dizzy and a vision appears before him of the three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. The goddesses are having a debate about who is the fairest among them and they have decided that Paris is to choose the winner. In order to sway his judgement they each offer a prize for picking them. Athena offers great wisdom, Hera offers great Kingdoms and wealth and Aphrodite offers the most beautiful woman in the world and shows Paris a vision of Helen. At the same time that Paris is looking at this vision of Helen, she is also seeing his face through a vision in a pool. When we...

Merced 27.08.2007 · Read review
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Review of Helen Of Troy (DVD)