Dear Marion,

Thank you very much for your interest in my ineffectual efforts at publication.
As soon as I get around to it, I will take your suggestion and make the description 
of Vier Freunde 1 more precise. The books are printed 6 lines per inch, and
appear to me quite legible.  The miniscule typeface of your printout reflects an
imperfection in the Amazon web page. I have found CreateSpace extremely efficient,
but from time to time I encounter technical problems that they haven't solved.
Among my pipe dreams is at some future date to publish "deluxe" editions which
would have larger print and be far more elegant but would unavoidably cost more. 
Meanwhile, please don't spend money on any of my stuff. If you'd like printed copies, 
please tell me, and I'll make you a present of them. However, I can easily clutter 
your computer with the proofs in pdf files. They are very bulky at 2.34 megabytes 
per volume. As I see it, there's no reason why you - or anyone else - should 
invest any time and energy, not to speak of money,  on my writing which I find 
very valuable as auto-psychotherapy, but good for not much else.

As of tonight only six volumes have been sold: Klemens bought volumes 1 and 2
of Döhring, Nathaniel bought only volume 1. Gertraud Strangfeld, the daughter 
of my first grade teacher bought volumes 1 and 2 of Döhring and volume 1 of
Vier Freunde. That's the sales total. Amazon tries to shame me by reporting my 
sales rank as 1,253,184, which I interpret as meaning that one and a quarter 
million books published by them have outperformed mine. If Amazon hadn't brought 
it up I wouldn't have mentioned the circumstance that of my literary heroes, 
Kierkegaard complained regularly that he had not one reader, and wrote affectionately 
about hiin enkelte, jener Einzelne, that single one who might someday read his book. 
Hoelderlin had the same problem. He was snubbed by Goethe as well as Schiller;
so far as I know his poems were circulated only among friends but never published 
during his lifetime.  Kleist committed suicide partly from despair for being ignored, 
and Nietzsche made a sour grapes fetish of "Einsamkeit".  None of which proves
that my writing is of any value at all.

As for the NYT article about the Dead Sea Scrolls, I considered the techniques
described as templates for promoting myself, if I chose to do so. I know that
neither Onkel Fritz nor Onkel Heinz would have condoned such shenanigans, but
I relish the irony and discover deep within me a yearning to become a participant
in the pervasive intellectual corruption that is the substance and essence of 
public life. Right now, however, I have other priorities.

As for the Yale economist's theory about deutsche Sparsamkeit, I agree that
the German language is more tolerant than English of using the present tense
to refer to future events. Es regnet jetzt. Es regnet nächsten Sonntag, etc.
To say "It rains today." "It rains on Sunday." though less colloquial is not
grammatically incorrect. Both languages have forceful future tenses. "Es wird
Sonntag regnen," is better German. Subject to my rather low opinion
of such rationalizations, the argument that the Germans' propensity for
delayed gratification is a virtue made of necessity and is closely related to
the servile notion of Pflicht seems more plausible to me. Maybe someday I'll 
find out why I don't turn up the thermostat.

Thank you again for your letter. Stay well, and when you're in the mood
and have the time, write again.

Jochen