Hullo Hoaks,

Strange coincidence indeed! I'm at Pendragon, by Rockridge BART. Sister store of Pegasus and Pegasus Downtown, but I have a feeling you might already know all about it...

You have a very cool library and funny comments.

Leah

posted by Leah.Hannah at 8:54 pm (EST) on Sep 30, 2007

Dear "Hoaks",

I have been meaning to write you for some time, but haven't wanted to cross the boundaries of neighborly relations, hoping that this issue would eventually work itself out. However, it has recently become abundantly clear that continuing to avoid this problem will only lead to the demise of my ceiling, and possibly my life.

You see, I live in the apartment beneath you. Last night, while we were enjoying our usual concoction of pastel cocktails and Tater Tot Surprise (you want the recipe? just holler) something terribly worrisome occurred: a book - Kirin Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, to be exact - wiggled its way through your parquet and in between the plaster cracks in our ceiling, landing squarely on Benji's potpourri vase. I can only interpret this as a cry for help.

I appreciate your love for literature and wouldn't dare suggest that you stop reading - but now Jenkins is walking around with a bike helmet and refuses to enter the living room, which, as you may know, is situated directly beneath your library. Your library of 1,155 books, to which you keep adding more weighty works.

I've called the insurance company and they do not cover ceilings collapsing under the weight of libraries.

Please. Become a library member. For us?

Thank you and see you later,
Tara

posted by aralena at 6:17 am (EST) on Aug 8, 2007

Oh, the Yacoubian Building. (Hi, this is in reference to your mail, chérie.) You know what's funny about this book? I actually saw it on your profile page when I discovered your name on my own profile page, and wondered about it, what your opinion would be, as I tend to gravitate toward North African fiction. I came upon it again, a few days later, on the new book shelf at the American Library, and I took it as a sign. Bummer overall, totally. I also figured the mediocre prose was a result of poor translation. But the author's treatment of sex and all its various macho manifestations repulsed me. I tried to read it through a non-Westernized perspective, but failed. Just gnarly. And that is probably the last time I will read a best-seller - unless you can suggest otherwise!

bisous!
-aralena

posted by aralena at 1:00 pm (EST) on Jun 21, 2007