New Bridget Jones novel shortlisted for ‘funniest book in fiction’ prize

Helen Fielding’s latest Bridget Jones novel has been shortlisted for a prize crowning the funniest books in fiction.

Bridget Jones’s Baby The Diaries, published last year, is one of six titles in contention for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize.

In the book, the famous singleton finds that she is unexpectedly pregnant, although she is not sure who the father is. The story also hit the big screen in the past year, with US actress Renee Zellweger reprising her role.

Judges praised the novel as “fun, witty and engaging”, 0 Helen Fielding’s book was described as ‘fun and witty’ saying that this is perhaps the British novelist’s “funniest one yet”.

Fielding was previously shortlisted for the prize in 2014, with Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy. Other books on this year’s “eclectic” shortlist are Razor Girl, a satirical crime novel by Carl Hiaasen set in Florida, and To Be Continued, James Robertson’s novel which features a talking toad and is set just after the Scottish independence referendum.

Everybody’s Fool - Richard Russo’s book depicting a small, decaying US town is on the list alongside Paradise Lodge, Nina Stibbe’s story about a 15-year-old girl who finds herself working in an old person’s home in Leicestershire in the 1970s. Also in the running is Here Comes Trouble, Simon Wroe’s coming of age novel.