The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

Hello Loves!  Here we are at the very end of 2020 and I think most of us are happy to see the end of this year. It's  been one hell of a ride hasn't it? Yet, here we are.  We survived what this year threw at us. If a year ago someone told me that come March the whole world would be forced indoors and sanitisers would be our new best friend and I'd buy so many masks, I'd ask you what you had been smoking?!  Yet we were thrown a curve ball and we survived.  It sucked.  We complained.  Worried.  Cried.  Found comfort in food and books and sleep and TV shows.  MY YEAR IN BOOKS  When it came to books I had a mixed bag of a year.  I honestly thought I'd read so much more, since we were going to be home but the stress and anxiety about this pandemic made reading harder on some days and overall I think read quite less this year.  But honestly I am not going to be hard on myself for my not-so-stellar reading.   It was goo...

Hello Loves!  Today I am here to list some of my favourite Indian Fiction Reads of 2020. I read a lot of Indian books, they are certainly my favourite kinds of books to read, there is so much talent in our country and so many incredible writers. So picking just a few faves is a little bit of a struggle.  Oh, not all of these books were released in 2020, some are older gems that I Read this year.  Cool.  Chalo let's jump in.    1. The Greatest Works of Rabindranath Tagore: This was my first read of 2020 and it was a good way to kickstart my reading year. Tagore is a Bengali home staple. I have always been surrounded by his work, whether songs or poetry or his stories. I haven't read a lot of his work. But over the last few years I've tried to fix that. I loved this collection of stories, I picked it up at my local book fair and read it in the first week of January. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it.  2. The House of a Thousand Stories by Ar...

  Book: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder  Author: Holly Jackson  Pages: 374  Read on: Kindle  Read in: 4 hours  Plot Summary:  The case is closed.  Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it. But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the crime, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure.  When she chooses the case as the topic for her final project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden.  And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth … ? Things I Liked:  1.  Getting  a bit ahead of myself, but this book is a perfect cozy winter read! If you haven't read it yet, go grab it, get under a quilt/ blanket and read this lovely, riveting book!  2. I really enjoy stories about cold cases. There is just something so inherently interesting and exciting...

 Hello!  Honestly, this year weekends and weekdays have all been pretty much the same thing.  Yet. every time the weekend rolls around, I feel like really getting down with my reading and finding something good to binge.  This weekend my reading life looks a something like this:  A Killer Among Us by Ushasi Sen Basu: First up, sister and I are buddy reading this thriller book that we found via Kindle Unlimited and we are both quite engrossed in.  I am only 14% in and I can't wait to get back to it.  Plot Summary:   What can strip away the polite veneer of an apartment complex and lay bare a world of secrets and lies? The discovery of a stranger’s body on its premises. Ira Dutta is an ambitious journalist who dislikes the ‘middle-class stagnation’ of Panorama Apartments. Nandana Roy is a stay-at-home mom, in the throes of an early mid-life crisis. Mrs Ghoshal is an octogenarian whose life revolves around television soaps. Just three, among many, s...

  1. Floral Notebooks from The Ink Bucket.  Things of beauty and perfect pocket sized journals.  2. Two Great Books I Read Earlier in the Year.  Both set in cities I've called home,  Bombay and Bangalore.  The Alchemy of Secrets by Priya Balasubramanian is set in Bangalore in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid Demolition and how communal tensions can effect even the most peaceful neighbourhoods and change lives forever. It was a moving read and so relevant in these times. I really enjoyed this book, the writing was lovely and it brought to life the simmering tensions that we all felt in the aftermath of the riots of 1992 and that we occasionally feel every now and then.  4/5  Bombay Balchao by Jane Borges: This is one of the best things I've read all year.  Bombay back in the day and a wonderful sense of community and a host of charming characters.  So good!  5/5  3. Pouches from iTokri: I recently got these two embroidered po...

  Book: A Man Called Ove  Author: Fredrik Backman  Pages: 337  Read: The paperback copy pictured above  Read in: ~3.5 hours  Plot Summary:  A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.   Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him  the bitter neighbor from hell , but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul....

  Hello November!  Hello Winter!  Hello Celebrations Big and Small, thanks to Diwali and my Sister's birthday.  I am so happy November is here.  :)  It's on of my favourite months of the year. Though I can't quite believe we are already in November!  This year, while trying and plain mean, does seem to be chugging along nicely.  I started my month on a bit of a sad note.  Today is my Thakurda's death anniversary and like every year, this month begins on a sombre note.  Also I had this horrendous experience with an Instagram shop and have spent most of last night and today pissed, annoyed and disappointed. Seriously, as much as I love buying from small shops and supporting indie brands, this heartache of mismanaged logistics and incompetent shop owners is just too much to stomach.  Ugh!  But let's focus on the good and ignore people not worthy of a second of my time.  I've been savouring Zikora by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ...

 Hello!  &  Happy Halloween!  Whether you celebrate Halloween or not, I think this a good time to read some good old horror novels and watch some scary films and get scared good and proper. So I figured I'd share some good spooky books I've read this year.  Some are thrillers. Some are horror.  And others have a clear spooky vibe but aren't exactly scary.  So I am hoping there is something for everyone here.  Cool, let's get started.  1. My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix: This is one of my more recent reads, I read this in the very beginning of the month and it was everything it promised to be. Scary. 80s. Female friendships. And what I loved best about it was how realistic it felt, like the reactions of the characters and how they handled certain situations was just spot on.  Pick it up if you enjoy some 80s pop-cult references and if possessions are your jam.  I really enjoyed it and I enjoyed that this book was pepp...

Hello!  Subho Ashtami!  Today is supposed to be the biggest day of the festival. The day we reserve our best outfits for. The day we eat the best food. Offer Anjoli to the Goddess. It's basically the highpoint of the festival.  Of course, this was before.  Today was dramatically different. For one, I have stayed home. Didn't dress up.  But...I ate yum Ma made food.  The weather has been a thing of beauty.  I am home with my family and that is celebration enough.  :)  My local Pujo Pandal from two years ago.  Quiet afternoons in my small town by a pond.  Little balcony gardens.  I love that my parent's home has a terrace and its full of plants and a perfect spot to see the world go by. This whole isolation situation is made infinitely better by having a terrace and a small window to the rest of the world.  Evening coffee to sip while watching Pujo pandals on the News and some very strange Bengali TV shows.  As for what...

  Book: The Exiles Author: Christina Baker Kline  Pages: 370 Read on: Kindle  Read in: 3.5 hours Plot Summary:  Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land. During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the  Medea , Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel -- a skilled midwife and herbalist – is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for...

  Book: Remnants of a Separation  Author: Aanchal Malhotra  Pages: 456 Publisher: Harper Collins  Read On: Hardback Edition  How Long it Took Me to Read: 3 days  Plot Summary:   Remnants of a Separation  is a unique attempt to revisit the Partition through objects that refugees carried with them across the border. These belongings absorbed the memory of a time and place, remaining latent and undisturbed for generations. They now speak of their owner's pasts as they emerge as testaments to the struggle, sacrifice, pain and belonging at an unparalleled moment in history.  A string of pearls gifted by a maharaja, carried from Dalhousie to Lahore, reveals the grandeur of a life that once was. A notebook of poems, brought from Lahore to Kalyan, shows one woman's determination to pursue the written word despite the turmoil around her. A refugee certificate created in Calcutta evokes in a daughter the feelings of displacement her father had ex...