The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

Book: The House of Lost Souls Author: F.G. Cottam Pages: 343 I Read: The paperback copy pictured above I Read It In: 7 hours (across two days) Plot Summary: Just weeks after four students cross the threshold of the derelict Fischer House, one of them has committed suicide and three are descending into madness. To save his sister, one of the three, ex-soldier Nick Mason must join ranks with Paul Seaton- who visited the house a decade earlier and survived. But Paul is a troubled man, haunted by visions of an ordeal that even now threaten his own sanity. Desperate, Nick forces Paul to go back into the past, to the secret journal of beautiful photographer Pandora Gibson-Hoare, to a decadent gathering in the 1920s and to Klaus Fischer- master of the debauched proceedings and an unspeakable crime. What I Liked: Quick bullet points: The premise of the story was very interesting. Paul's mysterious encounter at the Fischer House, why his life was the way it was now, u...

Book: Sharp Objects Author: Gillian Flynn Pages: 349 Read On: Paperback How Long It Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:   Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars. Since then, she had been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother's? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back? She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find. Who did massacre the Day family? General Thoughts: I read this book some two-three years ago, around the time Gone Girl came out and there was all this insane buzz about the author. I...

Book: Lamplight Author: Kankana Basu Pages: 200 Read On: Paperback How Long It Took Me To Read: 1 day Plot Summary:   The year is 1934. The picturesque town of Monghyr, in Bihar, lies devastated after a massive earthquake. The mansion of the Chattopadhyays an old aristocratic family continues to stand upright though a wall is cracking right down the middle. The members of the big joint family find their lives suddenly touched by the eerie and inexplicable. The ancient house has always had its share of creaks and quirks, but now strange incidents suddenly start occurring. General Thoughts: I read this book back in May. I saved up the review for Halloween. I randomly came across this book while browsing on Flipkart and something, well a lot of things about it drew me to it and I decided to give it a shot.  I read this book when I was battling the flu and I needed to read something that would cheer me up and for me nothing cheers me up like a good ghost st...

Book: The Romantics Author: Pankaj Mishra Pages: 286 Read On: Paperback How Long It Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:   The young Brahman Samar has come to the holy city of Benares to complete his education and take a civil service exam. But in this city redolent of timeworn customs, where pilgrims bathe in the sacred Ganges and breathe in smoke from burning ghats along the shore, Samar is offered entirely different perspectives on his country from the people he encounters. More than illustrating the clash of cultures, Mishra presents the universal truth that our desire for the other is our most painful joy. General Thoughts: I've wanted to read this book for very long, I had heard and read many great things about this book and it is set in Benares and I wanted to read it for ages. I am glad I got to it finally.  Things I Liked:  1. The writing was really lovely. It get a good job taking the reader with Samar to his travels in India and a grea...

Book: Horns Author: Joe Hill Read On: iPad Pages: 368 How Long It Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:  Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real. Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it  all , and more—he ha...

Book: Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders (also known as Oscar Wilde and a Death of no Importance ) Author: Gyles Brandreth Pages: 368 I Read: The paperback pictured above I Read it in: 4 hours Plot Summary:  A young artist's model has been murdered, and legendary wit Oscar Wilde enlists his friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Sherard to help him investigate. But when they arrive at the scene of the crime they find no sign of the gruesome killing -- save one small spatter of blood, high on the wall.  Set in London, Paris, Oxford, and Edinburgh at the height of Queen Victoria's reign, here is a gripping eyewitness account of Wilde's secret involvement in the curious case of Billy Wood, a young man whose brutal murder served as the inspiration for "The Picture of Dorian Gray."  Told by Wilde's contemporary -- poet Robert Sherard -- this novel provides a fascinating and evocative portrait of the great playwright and his own "consulti...

Book: The Infinite Sea Author: Rick Yancey Pages: 480 I Read it on: My Kindle I Read it in: 3 hours Plot Summary:  How do you rid the Earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity. Surviving the first four waves was nearly impossible. Now Cassie Sullivan finds herself in a new world, a world in which the fundamental trust that binds us together is gone. As the 5th Wave rolls across the landscape, Cassie, Ben, and Ringer are forced to confront the Others’ ultimate goal: the extermination of the human race. Cassie and her friends haven’t seen the depths to which the Others will sink, nor have the Others seen the heights to which humanity will rise, in the ultimate battle between life and death, hope and despair, love and hate. What I Liked: As mentioned in the title, The Infinite Sea  is the second book in The Fifth Wave  trilogy. If you have not read The Fifth Wave , CLICK HERE to read our review of it. Now, The Fifth Wave  was a p...

From our home and hearts to yours.. Happy Diwali!  May your life be full of love, light and laughs!

Book: The Chimney Sweeper's Boy Author: Barbara Vine Pages: 438 Read On: Paperback How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:   Writing as Barbara Vine, Britain's preeminent mystery novelist Ruth Rendell crafts literary suspense of the highest order. With this richly textured and utterly absorbing page-tumer, Vine adds to her growing reputation as one of the great writers of our time. Bestselling and critically acclaimed novelist Gerald Candless dies suddenly, and leaves behind a wife and two doting daughters. To sort through her grief, his daughter Sarah puts aside her university studies and agrees to write a biography of her famous father. But as she begins her research and pulls back the veil of his past, her life is slowly torn apart: a terrible logic begins to unfold that explains her mother's remoteness, her father's need to continually reinvent himself -- and sheds shocking light on a long-forgotten London murder.  General Thoughts: ...

Book: The Narrow Road to the Deep North Author: Richard Flanagan Pages: 467 I Read it on: My Kindle I Read it in: 9 hours (across two days) Plot Summary:  Richard Flanagan's story — of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle's wife — journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel, from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival, from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho's travel journal,  The Narrow Road To The Deep North  is about the impossibility of love. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds. Review and Thoughts: Let's get this out of ...

Diwali is right around the corner and it's time to splurge and treat yourself or someone you love. There are a few things I've had my heart set on and I thought I'd share some of these things with you. Things to love. Things to want and things to wish for. Here goes... 1. Since I am a self-confessed bookworm of course the first thing on my wishlist are books. These gorgeous books to be precise. The Random House UK re-designs of the Jane Austen books are totally darling. And utterly beautiful. I might have already ordered Emma and it is on my way as I type! So excite!!! But all these covers and their art is simply lovely and gorgeous and would look great on any bookshelf. 2. Keeping with the books theme, here is a bx-set I have wanted for ages. The Puffins Classic Deluxe box-set. Beautiful covers, pretty art and classic children's stories. What's not to love? 3. The Marc Jacobs Lolita eye-shadow palette. Basic neutral browns, some matte and some...

Book: The Chosen One Author: Carol Lynch Williams Pages: 213 Read On: Kindle How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 hours Plot Summary :  Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much---if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle---who already has six wives---Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever. General Thoughts: I am very curious about cults and religious sects and communities and how they live. Well, I am curious about how everyone lives. I am a nosy Nancy. Books are such a wonderful way ...

Book: The Cure for Dreaming Author: Cat Winters Pages: 368 Read On: My iPad How Long It Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:   Olivia Mead is a headstrong, independent girl—a suffragist—in an age that prefers its girls to be docile. It’s 1900 in Oregon, and Olivia’s father, concerned that she’s headed for trouble, convinces a stage mesmerist to try to hypnotize the rebellion out of her. But the hypnotist, an intriguing young man named Henri Reverie, gives her a terrible gift instead: she’s able to see people’s true natures, manifesting as visions of darkness and goodness, while also unable to speak her true thoughts out loud. These supernatural challenges only make Olivia more determined to speak her mind, and so she’s drawn into a dangerous relationship with the hypnotist and his mysterious motives, all while secretly fighting for the rights of women.  Winters breathes new life into history once again with an atmospheric, vividly real story, including ar...