I must admit, I’m not that into books about real life, or blogs – it smacks of voyeurism and schadenfreude, to me.  But it turns out that, with Petit Anglaise at any rate, my judgement was mistaken.   Catherine Sanders has spent the last few years writing a blog about her life as an ex-pat in Paris, and has now produced a book about writing the blog – a somewhat circular experience if you read both at the same time.  Sanders, who writes her blog under the pseudonym La Petite Anglaise, relates to us her initial love affair with France, how she came to be in Paris with a husband and child, and then the painful break up of her marriage and beginning life again as a single mother.  Self deprecating, funny, sensitive, interesting, Sanders’ book is an insight into the nitty-gritty of life as a ‘Petite Anglaise’, or little English woman in France – anyone harbouring dreams of running away to Paris would do well to read this first.  Its story-within-a-story feel when she talks about the blogs she’s posted, and relates them to exactly what she was feeling and thinking at the time is comforting proof that blogs can say a lot, but books can still say more.  It’s difficult to forget that this is a real person rather than more chick lit – although her blog has been styled as “Bridget Jones in Paris”, it has far more depth; you are never in any doubt that the author is being as honest as she can, and that she is a very real, and seems like the kind of person you’d want to engage in conversation.  Because of the nature of the book, it’s difficult to judge – we can hardly condemn her for the clichéd affair, or a one-dimensional husband – she’s actually writing as she finds.   It does work, and it works well.