over the next few months he read : the egyptian book of the dead , from which he learned how to pull someone 's brain out through his nostril with a buttonhook , which he was sure would come in handy someday ; a dozen books on dealing with death , grief , burial rituals , and myths of the underworld , from which he learned that there had been personifications of death since the dawn of time , and none of them looked like him ; and the tibetan book of the dead , from which he learned that bardo , the transition between this life and the next , was forty-nine days long , and that during the process you would be met by about thirty thousand demons , all of which were described in intricate detail , none of which looked like the sewer harpies , and all of which you were supposed to ignore and not be afraid of because they were n't real because they were of the material world .