This year in the life of a thirty-something single women started life as a column in The Independent newspaper. A zeitgeist novel, it seemed to sum up the experience of many urban professional women who identified with the weight-obsessed, alcohol- sodden and reluctantly-single, Bridget.
It's no accident that Helen Fielding gives the love interest the name Mark Darcy as Bridget Jones's Diary is both a parody of and a homage to Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.
