other than a chapter and a half that read like a sherlock holmes mystery this book was back on par with the first. i especially liked the dementors since i believe i have met a few masquerading as humans. from the author: dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. …they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them.

shortly after natalie started living with me she wanted to bring a couple mangy old stuffed bears from her apartment to the house. i was no kind of excited about it and insisted that the bears be washed in the machine before being welcome in the house. it wasn’t until two years later that i realized how real the bears are and what a sacrifice she made putting them through the laundry. this year they threw a birthday party for me and gave me this book. from the author: generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. but these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

a collection of short stories describing traditional life and the effects of modernization on the villages in eastern uttar pradesh, india. the book struck me as if holding an artifact of yet another culture no longer in existence.