The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

  Book: Troubled Blood (Cormoran Strike Book 5) Author: Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) Pages: 888 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~8-9 hours over two days  Plot Summary:  Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough - who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974. Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one forty years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike. As Strike and Robin investigate Margot's disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they lea

  Book: The Thursday Murder Club Author: Richard Osman  Pages: 382 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late? Things I Liked: 1. A story about four senior citizen detectives sounded so good! A lot of times, people tend to dismiss senior citizens without taking into  account  the rich experiences that they've lived through and how they can still help/ guide us in so many ways! I loved that the very  people, who are underestimated by society, decided to get involved and solve a murder that happened at their doorstep!  2. All the characters in

  Book: The Lost and Found Bookshop  Author: Susan Wiggs  Pages: 384  Read on: Kindle  Read in: 4 hours Plot Summary:  Somewhere in the vast Library of the Universe, as Natalie thought of it, there was a book that embodied exactly the things she was worrying about. In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, her only living relative—not counting her scoundrel father. But the gruff, deeply kind Andrew has begun displaying signs of decline. Natalie thinks it’s best to move him to an assisted living facility to ensure the care he needs. To pay for it, she plans to close the bookstore and sell the derelict but valuable building on historic Perdita Street, which is in need of constant fixing. There’s only one problem–Grandpa Andrew owns the building and refuses to sell. Natalie adores her grandfather; she’ll do whatever it takes to make his f

  Book: One by One  Author: Ruth Ware Pages: 384 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  Snow is falling in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, as the shareholders and directors of Snoop, the hottest new music app, gather for a make or break corporate retreat to decide the future of the company.  At stake is a billion-dollar dot com buyout that could make them all millionaires, or leave some of them out in the cold.   The clock is ticking on the offer, and with the group irrevocably split, tensions are running high. When an avalanche cuts the chalet off from help, and one board member goes missing in the snow, the group is forced to ask - would someone resort to murder, to get what they want? Things I Liked:  1. The premise and setting of the book seemed very atmospheric and interesting. I mean, let's face it, work  offsites  are shyte! Those are the facts! There are no fun work  offsites! All of us grin and bear it and just go through the motions of each d

 Hello!  A Stationery Sunday post after absolute ages.  I recently, after months of a dry spell, went back to journaling.  I hadn't journaled a single word or thought since May. MAY!  I just didn't feel like putting pen to paper or rather, if I'm being entirely honest, I didn't feel up to being alone with my thoughts.  I didn't want to dwell on my feelings of confusion and anxiety and hence, I kept awake from my journals.  In the beginning of this month, I decided to slowly, at a glacial pace get back to this old habit of mine. Journal this time, this extraordinary, unprecedented time. Just vent my feelings out and try to not feel overwhelmed all the time.  So with this goal in mind, I set a new journal insert. It also helped that I recently got some gorgeous journals and notebooks from The Ink Bucket, I will share the whole haul soon. If you want to see a glimpse of my new stationery, I suggest you go see the Reels on my IG.  Last weekend, I spent my Saturday morni

 Hello!  After months of not buying books, I allowed myself a little treat of sorts in August.  I bought 6 books and was sent one by publishers. So a book haul after months had to be shared.  I already shared my Harry Potter haul a few posts back, so I won't share those again. These are the other books I picked up and I have read all of these books already.  Yay! Love it when that happens.  Buy books. Read books.  First up, I finally got my hands on this gorgeous children's book that I've had my eye on since it first came out. So pretty and DOGS! It's about a little puppy and Sudha Murty's trademark smooth writing.  A delight!  This beautiful book was sent to me by the kind folks over at Harper Collins, thank you muchly! I read Bhaunri by the same author last year and loved it and knew I wanted to read more from her. I already own Daura, which I hope to read soon.  I've already read and Loved this book. A full review is coming soon.  A new Poirot mystery!  We qu

  Book: Moonflower Murders  Author: Anthony Horowitz  Pages: 592 Read on: Kindle  Read in: 5-6 hours  Plot Summary:  Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend. But life isn't as idyllic as it should be: exhausted by the responsibility of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, Susan is beginning to miss her literary life in London - even though her publishing career once entangled her in a lethal literary murder plot. So when an English couple come to visit with tales of a murder that took place in a hotel the same day their daughter Cecily was married there, Susan can't help but find herself fascinated. And when they tell her that Cecily has gone missing a few short hours after reading  Atticus Pund Takes The Case , a crime novel Susan edited some years previously, Susan knows she must return to London to find out what has happened. The clues to the murder and to Cecily's disappearance must

 Hello!  How is the weekend treating you?  Do you even realise when weekends begin anymore? I can only tell days apart because of my planner. Otherwise, it's all sort of blending into one.  But this weekend we are doing things right.  I've been up since dawn...well before dawn, I woke up properly at 5:00 AM and then after ambling around in bed till 6:00 AM I got up and got my day started.  Made coffee.  Took a shower.  Washed my hair.  Then I opened all the windows and let the breeze come in and bring in birdsong and light.  I then spent around half an hour just writing in my journal and doing morning pages, it felt so good to just put pen to paper and let my thoughts out.  This my journal at the moment. It's a field notes sized notebook from The Ink Bucket. Look at it's floral loveliness.  So damn pretty!  After journaling and a little bit of a planner catch-up, it was time to eat something.  So I fixed myself some stir fried veggies and toast.  :)  Then I spent some t

  Hello! Long time no book haul. I don't think I bought any books since...March? Or was it February? I have been buying occasional ebooks but I just didn't think it was a good idea to get any physical books. One, I didn't really NEED new books. I felt like the one good thing of this whole lockdown mess would mean reading books that had been sitting on my shelves for ages. Also, in the earliest days of the lockdown, books weren't being shipped, since they weren't considered essential items. Well, ok. Secondly, even once they were being shipped, the idea of having to sanitize yet another thing seemed like too much work.  So no books were bought.  But by July was I beginning to crack. I missed book mail and I missed the sight of new books in my life.  July is also Harry Potter's birthday and it is usually when I tend to re-read one or more of the Potter books.  Now, before I go on any further, I feel like I need to talk about JK Rowling and her very controversial a

  Hello!  This is my 100th post for this year. And like all things with 2020, this comes a lot later than usual. It's no surprise that blogging has been slow this year. One might think that given all else has come to a grinding halt, blogging and talking about books would just take off. I thought that too. In March, as the first phase of the lockdown was announced, I was all geared up for blogging more and clearing a long backlog of books I wanted to talk about. Alas! That just didn't happen. I ended up doing chores day in and day out and just not reading enough and definitely not blogging enough.  Hell, I got to book 100 only in August, a feat I normally, without any issues accomplish in June. July tops. But mostly June. But man, it's been a task on somedays to find time to read.  Cooking. Cleaning. Dishes.  Worrying about the world.  Sanitising every single thing...sure takes up a lot of time.  But in the last month, I've found my reading mojo back. I have slowly foun

  Book: Bombay Balchao Author: Jane Borges  Publisher: Westland Books  Pages: 224 Read On: Hardback Edition  How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days  Plot Summary:   Bombay was the city everyone came to in the early decades of the nineteenth century: among them, the Goans and the Mangaloreans. Looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena). Lovers and haters, friends and family, married men and determined singles, churchgoers and abstainers,  Bombay Balchão  is a tangled tale of ordinary lives – of a woman who loses her husband to a dockyard explosion and turns to bootlegging, a teen romance that drowns like

  Book: Parveen Babi- A Life Author: Karishma Upadhyay  Pages: 333 Read on: Kindle Read in: 4 hours    Plot Summary:  Sensuous, glamorous and bold, Parveen Babi set the Hindi cinema screen ablaze during the 1970s and ’80s, breaking the ‘pious, nice girl’ mould of the film heroine and redefining it after her own style. On screen, she sizzled in unforgettable roles in blockbusters like Deewaar, Shaan, Kaalia and Amar Akbar Anthony – while, off-screen, her bohemian and unabashed lifestyle lit up gossip columns, and her appearance on the cover of Time magazine, a first for an Indian, created a stir nationwide. Yet, for all the sensational rumours and films her life inspired, Parveen has remained something of an enigma to generations of fans.   In Parveen Babi: A Life , Karishma Upadhyay traces the journey of a shy but ambitious girl from an aristocratic family in Junagadh, Gujarat, to a life of merciless scrutiny that comes with being in the Bollywood spotlight. Exploring with depth and s