The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

Book: The Disappearance of Sally Sequeira  Author: Bhaskar Chattopadhyay Pages: 215  Publisher: Hachette India  Read On:  Paperback  How Long it Took Me To Read: 1 day (I could not put it down) Plot Summary:   The waves still crashed against the rocks. The moon still bathed the sandy beach with its light. And the piano still played on. But, amidst all this, just like that, Sally Sequeira had disappeared. With its pristine beaches and clear turquoise waters, the picturesque hamlet of Movim in Goa seems like the perfect holiday spot for detective Janardan Maity and his friend Prakash Ray. But when the father of a local teenage girl receives a letter asking for a large sum of money in exchange for his daughter, Maity and Prakash find themselves in the thick of an unlikely mystery. For, they discover, the girl has not been kidnapped at all, and is safe and sound in her house.   As they begin to investigate, the duo encounter the mys

Hello!  Hope your Sunday is going according to plan!  Mine has been a good mix of action and inaction.  My sister is back home after a couple of days away on work, so we've been catching up and trying to rest today.  Currently, we are both sitting cozy with our respective reads.  Since it's Sunday I figured I might as well share some of my stationery favourites from recent times.  These are all mostly things my sister has been loving lately.  So let's jump into shall we?  This gorgeous dual toned traveller's notebook is from The Black Canvas , who make some amazing traveller's notebooks and are are one of the few people doing so in India. So if you are in the market for a traveller's notebook and don't want to order one from abroad this is a good place to look into.  I love the colours of this dori. They gel so well together and not to mention mint and coral are some of my favourite colours. This is in an A6 size and it curre

Hello!  Just want to share some things that I find endlessly charming... Hope you are having a restful Saturday and are all set for  good weekend!  :)  1. Mumbai at takeoff. A city wrapped in clouds and covered in raindrops. Makes even harsh realities a little softer. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe rains manage to soothe and comfort my heart into seeing everything prettier.  2. Llamas on a tote bag.  I shall we thoroughly disappointed if I were to exit this planet without having had the good fortune of meeting one of these darling creatures in person. They look so fluffy! Please God, make this wish come true. Send a llama or two my way.  Tote bag from Accessorize, bought on super sale via Jabong.  :)  Now isn't that endlessly charming.  3. Benedict Cumberbatch.  In a TV show.  In a film.  On a book cover.  I'd find him endlessly charming if I met him in a smelly barn.  This man is a dreamboat!  4. Books with illustrat

Hello!  This has been an unintentional slow month on the blog. I feel like July has kicked my ass and how. Maybe it's something to do with Mercury Retrograde or just the stars aligning all wrong but man of man, this month has been hard. I feel like I've been sick with something or the other from the very beginning. I just want to feel like myself again.  With all the insanity that this month has thrown my way I completely forgot to share this last batch of books from June. I got these books sometimes one or two at a time but all from Amazon. I honestly am incapable of making an Amazon order without a book in it.  :)  Let's jump into the books shall we?  The first book is this brilliant graphic novel/biography/ fiction.  I have read and loved and reviewed it already.  It's so good!  I cannot recommend it enough.  I want to read this and then see the Colin Firth starring Tom Ford film adaptation, which looks like a stunning film, at least

Hello!  Long time no haul.  Today I want to share a quick little haul of silver earrings from Manjha.   Manjha- has been on my radar for a while now, nearly a year. Initially, I was not too comfortable getting silver online via the numerous Instagram shops. But earlier this year, we, my sister and I have tried a few shops and so far we've not been disappointed *touch wood*  Manjha has always caught my eye with their designs and I am so glad we finally got something from them. We love these earrings and this is only part-I of our picks from Manjha, we've since gotten more pieces from them, I will be sharing those soon too.  Our first pick is this vintage style engraves earrings with floorers and birds on them. I wanted something in this style for a while and I am so glad I finally have something like this. :)  These earrings are gorgeous and pretty light weight and can be worn for long periods of time without pulling down your ear lobes.  As you kn

Book: Last Time I Lied Author: Riley Sager  Pages: 368 Read on: Kindle  Read in: 3-4 hours  Plot Summary:  It was Emma's first summer away from home. She made friends. She played games. And she learned how to lie. Then three of her new friends went into the woods and never returned. . .  Now, years later, Emma has been asked to go back to the newly re-opened Camp Nightingale. She thinks she’s laying old ghosts to rest but really she’s returning to the scene of a crime. Because Emma’s innocence might be the biggest lie of all. Things I Liked:  The premise of this book seemed really interesting as it was set in a summer camp. Summer camps, in the horror genre, have a special significance given that one of the most iconic, cult classic horror movie franchises- Friday the 13th- is set in a summer camp. Also, there is just something about a summer camp- the wilderness, loads of unsupervised young people- that lends itself very well to mysteriou

Book: The Last Mrs. Parrish  Author: Liv Constantine  Pages: 405  Publisher: Harper Collins  Read On: Kindle  How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days  Plot Summary:   Amber Patterson is tired of being a nobody: an invisible woman who melts into the background. She deserves more. She deserves a life of wealth, luxury and leisure. Daphne Parrish is the golden girl of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut. With her model looks, her picture- perfect mansion and her millionaire husband, Jackson, she has everything Amber wants. Amber’s envy could eat her alive—if she didn't have a plan. Before long, she has become Daphne’s closest friend, and is catching the eye of Jackson. But a skeleton from her past could destroy everything, and if discovered, Amber’s well-laid plan may end in disaster. General Thoughts: I have been  reading  quite a few thrillers this past month but for some reason or the other  they were all more or less duds. OK, if not outrig

Book: When I Hit You Author: Meena Kandasamy Pages: 272 Publisher: Juggernaut Read On: My iPad via the Juggernaut App How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:   Seduced by politics, poetry and an enduring dream of building a better world together, the unnamed narrator falls in love with a university professor. Moving with him to a rain-washed coastal town, she swiftly learns that what for her is a bond of love is for him a contract of ownership. As he sets about reducing her to his idealized version of an obedient wife, bullying her and devouring her ambition of being a writer in the process, she attempts to push back – a resistance he resolves to break with violence and rape.   General Thoughts: I read an article by the author ages ago about her short lived and abusive marriage. This was years ago and the article was being widely shared on Facebook. I like so many others were appalled by what the writer had gone through. When I saw, years later the sa

Book: The Hate U Give Author: Angie Thomas Pages: 447 Publisher: Penguin  How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days Read On: Paperback Collector's Edition Plot Summary:   Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what  really  went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.  But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life. Genera

Hello!  Another Friday and another batch of some of my favourite things!  This Friday is a little bit gloomy. My sister is suffering from a bout of bronchial asthma and woke up this morning pretty much struggling to breathe. Even her usual medicine and inhalers weren't working. So after stressing out for most of this morning, we called our family doctor who came in and gave her two injections. She is feeling a lot better now and is finally napping. She has dealt with asthma her whole life and even though I've seen her struggle with breathing numerous times, it still scares me when she gets this way.  I am so grateful to modern medicine and Doctors who help us get better.  The plan for this weekend is to stay in and get her to rest up.  Also maybe binge watch Sacred Games.  I actually, have the book but I haven't read it yet (story of my life!)  I wanted to read it before watching the show but I don't honestly see that happening. Perhaps, I'll rea

Hello! One of the best things to do in the world is reading thrillers, especially, during the monsoons! Picture this- a dark, gloomy, rainy day and you curled up in bed with a thriller! Isn't that the most fun way to spend rainy days?! Well, for a bookworm, it is!  So, obviously, since June is when the rain Gods bless Bombay with some much-needed showers, my sister and I ended up spending many such rainy weekends with some much-hyped thriller books. Most, unfortunately, were a miss, but there were a few good ones too in the mix, which I thought I should review below, just in case any of you fine folk are considering reading thrillers in July!  The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy   Plot Summary:  We all want different things. Francie wants to be the perfect mother. Nell wants to escape the past. Collette wants to spend more time with her family. All Winnie wants is to have her baby back. When Nell suggests a night out in Brooklyn to her new mums club, t

Book: Indira Author: Devapriya Roy Illustrator: Priya Kuriyan Publisher:   Context,  Westland Books  Pages: 144 Read On: Paperback Edition How Long it Took Me To Read : 2 days ( I read slowly to savour it!) Plot Summary:  In a government school classroom in Delhi, young Indira Thapa is set an unusual assignment by her favourite teacher: to write an essay around her name. Who was Indira Priyadarshini, the person after whom her grandfather named her? And why her? What is her legacy as India’s first—and only—woman prime minister?   Over the course of a long, hot summer and a curious friendship with an artist who is working on a biography of Mrs Gandhi, young Indira gets tangled up in the life and times of her memorable namesake. Sometimes by design and sometimes by accident, story after story comes alive—about a childhood spent in Allahabad growing the Vanar Sena, of a youthful romance with the charming Feroze Gandhi, of stints in jail and elephant rides throug