The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

Hello!  Today's post is a little different. :)  I am here to un-box a fairly unique monthly subscription box. But a box with a difference. :) I am sure most of you have heard and seen and perhaps even subscribed to a monthly box. Most of these boxes are ones with make-up, beauty and skincare bits aimed at women. While there is absolutely nothing with loving make-up and beauty things- hell I love them to bits- it is nice to have a box that is geared towards some other and varied interests a woman might have. Books for one thing! Or stationery. Or  decor things.  If you've been looking for a box like that..this post might be of interest to you.  I was recently contacted by the lovely girls over at My Big Red Bag who asked me if I'd be interested in their Book Lover Story Box . It sounded interesting and different and I was totally on board! They sent over the box and I am so excited to share it's contents with you.  The box was sent to me...

Hello!  Last week was all about me trying to sort out my bookshelves and it kinda took over my life. In a good way! But I kinda sorta forgot about my weekly 365 post. And now it's nearly time to recap the next week. So I decided to combine the two weeks and give you one big post recapping two weeks in the life of me!  :)  Here we go...  Week 29 was a good one. I watched Piku which is pretty much the best movie I've seen all year around. I loved it. The Bong-ness of it is so spot on.  I also doodled and art-journaled.  Moved things around the house.  Filled ink in my ink pens. Week 30...a crazy, happy, hectic blur.  Bookshelves were re-organised and I am so in love with how my main bookshelf looks now!  Made a spicy shrimp/prawn Mac n' Cheese. It was so good. I am most certainly going to make it again.  Also did some DIY with those cute animal faces.  Got a Paper-Dori in the mail with gi...

Book: All The Light We Cannot See Author: Anthony Doerr Pages: 531 I read: The Kindle version I read it in: 5-6 hours Plot Summary: Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, ...

Hello!  Sometimes one has to wait in a car for a little while.  On this day, I was waiting for 45 minutes in the car for my sister to wrap up work.  It was hot. I was bored but the light was lovely so I snapped some little details of the jewellery I had on. And the book I was reading.  My rings are from Darjeeling.  My beaded bangles are from Aldo.  My birdie necklace is from Accessorize. My knit bracelets are from Aldo and Accessorize.  My book was Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry.  My nail-polish Periwinkle by China Glaze.  I was listening to tunes from U2.  Though waiting is no fun...taking pictures in the afternoon sunlight is not half bad!

Book: The Mysterious Mr. Quin Author: Agatha Christie Pages: 380 I read: The paperback pictured above I read it in: A day or two Plot Summary: Harley Quin is an enigma. Even his friend Mr Satterthwaite is unable to understand how the man seems to appear and disappear almost like a trick of the light - and when he does appear it's usually in the sparkle of sunshine, or surrounded by a spectrum of coloured light pouring through a stained glass window... In fact, the only consistent thing about the Mysterious Mr Quin is that his presence is always a harbinger of love ... or death. General Thoughts: We read a lot of Agatha Christie even now. She is one of those authors whose books have so many layers that even if you've read something by her in your teens (like my sister and I did), you'll discover something new on re-reading her books.  What I Liked: Quick list: This is a collection of short stories and each of them have to do with some crime/ injustic...

Hello!  Hope this Friday is treating you well.  I am alright I suppose.  I've been re-organising my two main bookshelves since yesterday and it has taken over my life.  I am nearly done, I only have one more shelf to sort out. :)  I love doing this..but man it takes a toll. It's a lot of work and it involves a lot of thinking as well. That is all I've been doing since yesterday..thinking..sorting and moving my books around.  Now on to my favourites.. 1. I adore these red post-boxes. Even though I haven't written a letter in well over a decade, I am happy to see these boxes. I hope we never ever not need them. They remind me of the old world. Of how things were done earlier.  2. A bunch of cute books I had seen at the Strand Book Sale..I didn't buy them but snapped a picture since they were so adorable.  3. Pendants..notable Buddhist motif pendants I love.  4. A bangle party like no other. ...

Hello!  Another flashback post... These pictures take me back to a cold winter's evening.  An evening of making decisions. Of shopping. Of long conversations. And of a good meal at Cafe Noir.  We ate yummy food. Drank good coffee.  I wore a lot of jewellery and had bright nails. And I carried a teal coloured bag.  A good evening. :)  My bag is from Accessorize. My nail paint is from Essie.  My jewellery is from silver shops in Bombay and Etsy.  My tee-shirt is from Forever New.   My watch is from Aldo.  I love how pictures bring back a flood of memories from ages ago. I am glad I am an avid picture taker. I love that we have cameras on our phone and I love that we can take hundreds of photos in a month..even blurry ones...so we can look back and relive a little bit of our lives.  It's a great time to be alive isn't it?  :)

Book: Aarushi Author: Avirook Sen Pages: 268 I read it on: My Kindle I read it in: 3-4 hours Plot Summary: Seven years ago a teenage girl, Aarushi Talwar, was found murdered in her bedroom in Noida, a middle-class suburb of Delhi. The body of the prime suspect—the family servant, Hemraj—was discovered a day later.  Who had committed the double murders, and why? Within weeks, Aarushi’s parents, the Talwars, were accused; four years later, they went on trial and were convicted.   But did they do it?   Avirook Sen attended the trial, accessed important documents and interviewed all the players—from Aarushi’s friends to Hemraj’s old boss, from the investigators to the forensic scientists—to write a meticulous and chilling book that reads like a thriller but also tells a story that is horrifyingly true. Aarushi is the definitive account of a sensational crime, and the investigation and trial that followed. General Thoughts: It was just another ...

  Book:   Saint Anything  Author: Sarah Dessen  Pages: 391  Read On: My iPad  How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days  Plot Summary: Peyton, Sydney's charismatic older brother, has always been the star of the family, receiving the lion's share of their parents' attention and—lately—concern. When Peyton's increasingly reckless behavior culminates in an accident, a drunk driving conviction, and a jail sentence, Sydney is cast adrift, searching for her place in the family and the world. When everyone else is so worried about Peyton, is she the only one concerned about the victim of the accident? Enter the Chathams, a warm, chaotic family who run a pizza parlor, play bluegrass on weekends, and pitch in to care for their mother, who has multiple sclerosis. Here Sydney experiences unquestioning acceptance. And here she meets Mac, gentle, watchful, and protective, who makes Sydney feel seen, really seen, for the first time. ...

Hello!  Happy Monday guys.  This Monday is a bit of a flashback. These pictures were taken in Bangalore at a handicrafts exhibition in 2011. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the aisles and seeing the wares from various states in India. I especially loved the ceramic mugs and cups. We bought two mugs that I still love.  Exhibitions are one of my favourite things ever. I love handmade things. See the artisans who produce such labours of love and buy directly from the artisan.  I love things that aren't mass produced, things that are unique and handmade and made with love and sometimes are art forms in themselves.  On this particular evening, we bought the 2 ceramic mugs. We also bought some hand painted bangles and some silver jewellery from Rajasthan. A bangle stand and some decorative bits for home. I am so glad I had this pictures tucked away somewhere, they take me right back to that evening.  Have ...

Book: The Little Friend Author: Donna Tartt Pages: 555 Read On: Paperback How Long it Took Me To Read: 4 days Plot Summary: The Little Friend   is a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence and evil. The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss. General Thoughts: This is the second Tartt novel I've read. I read and LOVED The Secret History ( I really should talk about this book on the blog, soon!...

Hello!  Week 28 was a week of the having a cold and feeling like my head was whoozy and I just felt awful for most part.  But there was making mug cakes.  Reading a lot.  Watching some movies.  Naps.  And just taking things easy.  Honestly, I didn't take that many pictures but let' see what week 28 looked like in my world.. Day 189: Pretty and simple light fixtures. So minimalistic and yet such a statement piece.  Day 190: A sudden and intense craving for cake was satiated by making simple yet delicious mug cakes.  The one featured above is a chocolate and coffee mug cake.  All you need is.. 3 Tbsp Flour  3 Tbsp Butter  2 Tbsp Cocoa powder  1 Tbsp Coffee poweder  3 Tbsp Sugar  1/4 th teaspoon baking powder  1/2 a beaten egg  Mix it well  Spin in microwave on high for 3-4 minutes (depends on the power of your microwave)  and you...