Petite Anglaise

Weeks ago my friend Jasmin emailed me about a blog she found called Petite Anglaise. She said that the writer got a book deal with Penguin. I did some research and found out that this girl had a blog, which was entirely anonymous, and was discovered by someone at her workplace and fired for it, even though names were never mentioned. It created a large amount of media buzz, which captured the attention of Penguin. The rest is history. She's just an English girl living in Paris and telling her story.

Soon after, while I was roaming the aisles of W.H. Smith Bookstore I saw that the author, Catherine Sanderson, would be doing a reading and book signing. Now before going any further I must admit that book signings seem highly intellectual to me and only take place in movies or attended by people that throw up snaps of approval with engaged nods of the head who consider themselves serious. I decided to break that stereotype and go - alone. Most of my friends know that I have no qualms with being alone, I quite enjoy it.Tonight I left work early and jumped on line 8 to Concorde, just one stop. I made it on time to find about sixty other people there before me. The champagne was flowing in real glasses and English could be heard everywhere. I had forgotten what that sounded like. It wasn't much like home since the accents were of the British sort, however the occasional American twang could be heard. I saw the author walk in and was quite impressed with her ordinary nature. She seemd as someone I could have a chat with at the park or while standing in a queue. After everyone got pleasantly smoothed by the champagne, the show began. I lucked out by being on the front row. She introduced herself, read some excerpts and took her seat at the table to sign. I didn't have to wait too long and was able to share with her about how I caught the writing bug after blogging for a bit as well. I bought the book but can't read it just yet. I need to finish the biography of Jacqueline Kenny Onassis that is roughly the weight of War and Peace first, which I just started on Monday. I can't wait to read this one though. Tonight she was quite encouraging without intention. I hope it spurs me to do something with this as well. Until then I plan to attend many more book signings, yes.