Dear Mr Hesse,

I love your books very much. I lend Siddhartha to everyone, and I took to heart the recommendation of one of my three favourite university lecturers (he carried himself like a lion) that I read The Glass Bead Game. I even want to read Narziss and Goldmund despite my suspicions that it may be another treatise on the exquisite, enduring but platonic love two men can have for one another.

That is why I feel guilty that Steppenwolf is sitting in the middle, not even on the top, of my Half-Read Books Pile. It has good company. It is three books below Hunger by Knut Hamsun, five books below Woody and Mia by Kristi Groteke (with Marjorie Rosen). It is on top of Tao Lin’s Eeeee eee eeee.

The usurper which very lately condemned all the books in this Pile to maintaining their ranked positions is The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. It took me one day to read. I hope you won’t be too upset.

You are about sixth in line.

Estelle