Cover detail of Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding

2 BBC Big Read Books

Right, do not adjust your set you did that right. I have finally reviewed not one, but two BBC Big Read titles! Back when I first started my blog I decided to re-read the BBC Big Read books published way back in 2003 compiled from votes of the general public. The Lord of the Rings came out top of the list and steadily, (some might say pedestrian) I have been reading the list again.

Read all about my BBC Big Read Challenge

This also happens to be the final two books I read whilst on holiday in beautiful Grenada. i finished Bridget Jones Diary on the plane coming home. If you want a list of the other books I read on holiday they are below:

Let's kick of with a book that i have been reading forever. (well since July 23 anyway)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Plot

Gabriel García Márquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny.

My Thoughts

This comes in at #32 on the BBC Big Read List which is mystifying to me when novels such as Dracula do not appear at all. I will be honest, I did not enjoy this. The book features seven generations of one family, through 100 years. The first confusing part is that many of the family are called by the same name. My top tip is to download a family tree of the characters, (you can find theses online), and use this alongside your read.

The writing is brutal, magical and strange and indeed Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the father of magical realism. . But a little does go a long way and this is reads like a family fable told through a stream of consciousness.

I do not like to be rude about any books on my blog, and I know of friends who adore this book. But it was not for me and became an endurance event to read. As I say each to their own.

Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding

The Plot

Welcome to Bridget's first diary: mercilessly funny, endlessly touching and utterly addictive.

A dazzlingly urban satire on modern relationships?
An ironic, tragic insight into the demise of the nuclear family?
Or the confused ramblings of a pissed thirty-something?

As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her thirties and tries to weigh up the eternal question (Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy?), she turns for support to four indispensable friends: Shazzer, Jude, Tom and a bottle of chardonnay.

Helen Fielding's first Bridget Jones novel, Bridget Jones's Diary, sparked a phenomenon that has seen four books, newspaper columns and the smash-hit film series Bridget Jones's Diary, The Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones's Baby and Mad About the Boy.

My Thoughts

Coming in at #75 on the BBC Big Read list is Bridget Jones Diary'. I first read this way back in the 1990's when it won multiple awards and seemed to be everyones' book of the year. It definitely epitomised that time. Women moving to London, flat-sharing, trying to have a career, nights out with friends and lots of drinking. It also coined a number of phrases such as smug married, that are still used, and type anyone using them to the 90's decade.

This felt like a lovely walk down memory lane and I did enjoy reading this. You do spend a lot of the book with your hand over your eyes whilst Bridget finds herself in one comedy situation after another, but ultimately she is very sweet and you do find yourself rooting for her. Bridget was all of us at one time. lovely to re-read this.

And there we have it my loves, 2 books from the BBC Big Read list, and which you probably never hear in the same breath again.

I will be back on Friday with a book by one of this blog's favourite authors.