New Bridget Jones will be ‘Mad About the Boy’

Bridget Jones is coming back, and she’ll be “Mad About the Boy.” That’s the title of the upcoming novel by Helen Fielding, who’s writing her first Bridget Jones book in more than a decade.

Does the title mean that Bridget’s got another crazy crush, or has she decided to have a baby? Fielding isn’t saying; according to her publisher, she “raised one eyebrow enigmatically” rather than comment.

Knopf is scheduled to publish “Mad About the Boy” on Oct. 15.

Fielding’s “Bridget Jones’ Diary” was published in 1996, followed by “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” in 1999. Together, the two novels have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Both were adapted into films starring Renee Zellwegger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.

The details Knopf has provided about the book are: “The novel is set in present-day London; Bridget is older; she is still keeping a diary, but she is also immersed in texting and experimenting with social media, with an accent on ‘social.’”

The announcement included an excerpt from the book, with Bridget’s semi-incomprehensible typos and all:

11.27 p.m. Just presss d SEND. Iss fineisn’t it?

You see, this is the trouble with the modern world. If it was the days of letter-writing, I would never even have started to find his address, a pen, a piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp, and gone outside at 11.30 p.m. to find a postbox. A text is gone at the brush of a fingertip, like a nuclear bomb or exocet missile.

DATING RULE NO:1
DO NOT TEXT WHEN DRUNK

ALSO:

‘Nothin’ but Blues Skies’ tells Rust Belt stories

Pearl S. Buck to publish new novel ... 40 years after her death

George Packer chronicles American boom and bust in ‘The Unwinding’

Join Carolyn Kellogg on Twitter, Facebook and Google+