If The Edge of Reason, the sequel to Bridget Jones’s Diary, left you wanting more, then you’re in luck: Helen Fielding did another series of columns which are available online. (Or maybe you’re not as lame as I am and already read them when they were published 3 years ago.) Anyway, it’s a little bit of a drag to have to read Bridget’s third and almost certainly final volume on the computer, but I couldn’t bring myself to print out all those pages. Regardless, the year of weekly diary entries brings things to a much more satisfactory conclusion: Bridget Jones’s Diary Returns. (Note that the site also includes links to articles about the columns - the actual diary entries have bolded dates.)

I’ve been away for a while - just haven’t had as much time to read and blog as I’d like, but I promise I’ll be adding more reviews soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d share this list of the 50 Best Chick Lit Blogs from The Love Coach - “Helping Nerds Date Since 2008.” Enjoy!

Last Chance Saloon is Marian Keyes’s first novel told from multiple third-person points of view. It’s the story of old friends and new loves, growing up and seeing people for who they really are. Between the hair-obsessed actor and the woman who learns that it’s ok to need someone, it will make you laugh and cry.

It’s funny how people can see things so differently. A friend of mine asked a chick-lit-loving friend of his to recommend a book for me, and she came up with Alex Witchel’s The Spare Wife, which she described as “fun, sexy and an insider view of New York City’s upper crust.” I tried really hard to like it, but I found it boring, mean, and basically horrible - affairs with best friends’ spouses, rape fantasies, things that some people apparently find sexy and others - or at least I - find offensive and not at all fun. I literally hated this book. To each his or her own.

I can’t remember ever reading any chick lit by an Australian author, but I’m sure there is some. If you know of any - good or bad - please let me know so that I can try to round out my coverage of chick lit from English-speaking countries.

Joan Conway’s Cereal Lover is probably one of the least-known great chick lit novels. The writing style is very similar to Marian Keyes’s* and the story is a little nutty, but that just makes it more fun. This is one of my favorite books - it’s a quick, funny read.

*So much so that for a while I thought Joan Conway might be a pen name. Then Ms. Keyes came out with her 6th or 7th novel and it was clear she just couldn’t possibly have enough time to write under multiple names.

A misunderstanding over an offensive bet leads to good food and great sex in Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me. The characters are well-defined and the story is fast-paced, making for a fun and sexy novel.

Shannon Olson, the eponymous heroine of Shannon Olson’s Welcome to My Planet (Where English Is Sometimes Spoken) is a mess: bad job, worse credit, crazy family, and terrible taste in men. There are a few funny moments, and the writing is pretty good, but it’s just too far out there - what kind of self-respecting woman would allow such a loser boyfriend into her life, let alone let him to treat her like that, repeatedly? And I know this is picky, but I was very distracted by the fact that the author named her allegedy fictional character after herself. I sure hope everything else was made up, because it’s a pretty sad story.

Is there anything more fun than reminiscing about old movies with new friends? In Looking for Andrew McCarthy, Jenny Colgan not only offers a great chick lit novel (girl gets dumped and goes on an impossible quest across the US), but also a look back at all those brat pack movies that I loved (and some that I hated). She makes snide comments that I might have made and laughs in all the same places I did. It’s so much fun!

Animal Husbandry, by Laura Zigman, is one of the wackier books I’ve ever read - chick lit or otherwise. When Jane Goodall (no relation) gets dumped, she turns to the animal kingdom to try to make sense of her boyfriend’s behavior, and draws a number of startling and interesting parallels between animals and humans. It’s a weird but worthwhile read.