The upcoming Bridget Jones book has an official title.
Announced Tuesday on NBC’s Today, the third installment of Helen Fielding‘s romantic-comedy series is called Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
In an excerpt released to the morning show, the beloved and pratfall-prone character reveals her thoughts on dating in a digital age where texting is the most popular mode of communication. Rule No. 1: “DO NOT TEXT WHEN DRUNK.”
Publisher Knopf later released the full excerpt:
Wednesday 24 October 2012
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 11.30p.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
Fielding is being coy about who the eponymous “boy” in the title is.
The publisher has also be circumspect about the story as well.
Knopf Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Sonny Mehta said, “I’m thrilled to report she’s back and in familiar fettle. Mad About the Boy represents a totally new phase in Bridget’s life, as Fielding has indicated when she said “Bridget’s life has moved on.” But, the question is, just how much?
Here is what we can share: 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.”
“My life has moved on and Bridget’s will move on, too,” Fielding said earlier this year. “I hope people will have as much fun reading it as I am writing it.”
Fielding’s first book, Bridget Jones’ Diary, was published in 1996 and is credited with launching the chick lit phenomenon. The sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, arrived in 1999.
The two novels, which have sold more than 15 million copies and are published in 40 different countries, were adapted for the big screen into successful films starring Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.
The original movie, released in 2001, and its 2004 sequel, grossed $281 million and $262 million worldwide, respectively.
The U.S. appeal of both films was softer, with Diary grossing just $71 million and Edge of Reason taking in only $41 million.
