The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

 Hello Loves! Hope your Monday is going well.  Let's start this week with a little look at what I read this psst weekend.  Greenlight by Kalpana Swaminathan: I recently, very recently, as in earlier this month, I discovered a new sleuth to read and love. I read the newest book in the Lalli Mysteries a few weeks ago, and I was so chuffed to learn that there are so many older books in the series that I want to read. I  promptly ordered 3 of her older titles from Book Chor and this one I read first.  This book is sort of inspired by the Nithari killings (very loosely) and is set in a slum in Mumbai where little girls are being abducted, brutalised and their bodies returned home. Gruesome and gory (please avoid if these things trigger you). Lalli  is on the case and determined to get to the bottom of this sordid affair.  I read this book over two days and the second half is better than the first half which is pretty slow and languid and a little too inves...

 Hello Loves!  In my world there is no such thing as too many notebooks.  There is always, always more room in my life and heart for new notebooks.  I have wanted to get these beautiful floral notebooks for months, they kept popping up on my IG and I finally caved in and bought a set of three notebooks from The Happy Wagon.   They are designed by Tatiana Abaurre.  :)  And I intend on using them come 2022 and not hoard them infinitely.  :)  The tiniest one will go to my sister and the other two I'll use in the coming year.  :) I cannot wait.  OK, first things first.  One notebook came with a matching bookmark which made me very, very happy.  :)  Here are all three notebooks.  Two of them are A5 sized and one is an A6..or maybe it's a Field Notes size.  I love how each is a different kind of floral design.  I love these darker floral tones.  The flowers aka the art just pops off the page.  ...

  Spooky Season is upon us, friends! If you are a fan of horror or noir-ish crime fiction, then this is the time to binge on this type of content!  I recently finished watching The Chestnut Man on Netflix and thought I'd do a quick review.  Adapted from the eponymous best-selling Nordic Noir crime thriller novel, The Chestnut Man follows a team of two cops in Copenhagen as they solve a series of gruesome serial killings. Thulin, a star investigator and a single mother, wants to leave her highly demanding job as a homicide detective to make more time for Le, her young daughter. Hess, reeling from a personal tragedy, is on a break from Europol and back in his hometown for a few weeks. When the brutalised body of a young mother is found in her own backyard, along with a small chestnut man (little stick-figure creatures made from chestnuts by children) bearing the fingerprints of a minister's daughter, who was abducted and killed one year ago, Thulin and Hess have to rush aga...

  Book: Name Place Animal Thing  Author: Daribha Lyndem  Publisher: Zubaan Books  Pages: 208  How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days  Read On: Kindle  Plot Summary:   In this novella, Daribha Lyndem gently lifts the curtain on the coming of age of a young Khasi woman and the politically charged city of Shillong in which she lives. Like the beloved school game from which it takes its name, the book meanders through ages, lives and places. The interconnected stories build on each other to cover the breadth of a childhood, and move into the precarious awareness of adulthood. A shining debut,  Name Place Animal Thing  is an elegant examination of the porous boundaries between the adult world and that of a child’s. Review: This book had been on my radar since it first came out. For the longest time I was holding out for the hardback edition (very bookish issues) and then I decided to be good and just read it already. And I am so so so gla...

Subho Bijoya Loves.  May Maa Durga bless you and yours and keep you safe and well.  May Good always triumph over evil.  May all our troubles melt away.  :)  Happy Dussehra Loves.   Dugga Dugga!  Can't quite believe Pujo is over already.  A good Pujo it's been. It was nice to see people feel festive and go out and about and dress up and eat and spend time with their loved ones.  I hope everyone was safe and had a good Pujo. I did a spot of pandal hopping and a bit of dressing up and a lot of eating!  :) I also read a bit and watched a lot of stuff.  All good things! These are some beautiful pandals from my small town of Jalpaiguri. Pujo was a little subdued this year, not as grand as other years, a lot of Pujos didn't even happen.  I hope by next year things are A-OK and we all can go back to normal.  :)  Dugga Dugga. 

 Hello Loves!  And a Subho Ashtami to you.  Today is the most important day of the festival, the day we save our best outfits for.  However today is one HOT day in my corner of the world (41 degree Celsius) and I am hiding from the sun and reading, lazing around and planning dinner.  Spoiler Alert: It's Biryani!  :)  I did all of my Pandal Hopping on Shoshti, in a bid to avoid crowds and traffic and it was the best way to see the beautiful pandals and protimas.  For the rest of Pujo my plans have been quite sedate.  Eat good food.  Hide from the sun.  And of course, READ.  And each some stuff with the family.  First let's talk about the reading.  The Illuminated by Anindita Ghose: This is my current read. I am hanging out with Probashi Bengali  mother and daughter duo for Pujo this year. I recently bought this book, for a pretty good deal, even though I really wanted to hold out and get a physical copy because t...

  Hello everyone! Wishing you and yours a very Happy Durga Pujo! Shubho Sharadiya!  Have a wonderful pujo filled with fun, friends, family and FOOD!  May the Goddess bless us with all of the bright, good things! Lots of love, The Whimsy Bookworm (Pooja) and Sister Bookworm (Debs) P.S: Sharing a few pictures from a very quick, very safe (we were the ONLY people in totally empty pandals yesterday!) pandal hopping that we did yesterday (during the day and it was SO HOT!).  Tiny Maa Durga and her kids made by a talent school-going kid! How amazing is this?!  A beautiful sthal poddo in full bloom. These magical flowers start white and turn pink!  My sister carried this beautiful circle bag from Riddhi Pankaj, which is illustrated by Karubasona. Both of these are our favourite brands owned by women entrepreneurs.  Shubho Saptami! Have a lovely day! 

  We just finished bingeing the Netflix documentary 'House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths' . For the uninitiated, in June 2018, 11 members of a multi-generational, typical joint family were found dead in their North Delhi home. There were no signs of foul play and this was a case that didn't fit neatly into any pattern that the cops had come across until then. A mass, multi-generational family, suicide was unheard of in India and the murder of 11 family members, mostly below 45 years of age, with no signs of struggle also seemed impossible to pull off! So, what was it? What caused the deaths of these 11 souls?  That is what House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths delves into and here are two reasons why you must watch this really interesting series!  1. At just three 45-minute episodes, House of Secrets is the perfect length to binge watch immediately. It'll only take a little over a couple of hours and you'll have the satisfaction of watching something genuinely interes...

Hey everyone! Hope your weekend has gotten off to a good start! The festive season has arrived! Even though things are not fully "normal" right now, there is still a lot of festive cheer in the air. However, if you are someone, who (like us) is not going out a lot and celebrating at home, then we have a bunch of Pujo- themed movies and web series for you to watch this weekend!  Some of these are old favourites, some are a bit new, but they all have some connection or the other with Durga Pujo.  Let's get to the list, then, shall we?  1. Joy Baba Felunath: Feluda, Topshe and Lalmohan Babu are in Benares on a lovely little holiday, when an ancient Ganesha idol belonging to a local wealth Bengali family is stolen. Smack bang in the middle of Durga Pujo. Our master sleuth is on the job and what unfolds is a classic. Watch it, if you haven't already and if you have, watch it again! I said 'classic', didn't I?  2. Kahaani: Another classic, albeit a modern one. A...

 Hello Loves!  Happy Navratri.  May this festive season be good for you and yours.  This year I have done a little Pujo prep and shopping. It feels good after taking last year off from any kind of Pujo indulgence in 2020.  I have clothes, bags and a fair amount of jewellery lined up.  Let's start with jewellery first.  I got some beautiful hand-painted necklaces from Salankaraa. That are perfect for Pujo.  Salankaraa has been a happy discovery I've made this year and I've made quite a few purchases from her this year and loved all of it.  This one give me a Mexican and Bengali mix vibe.  Love the colours on this one and I think this will go so well with a bunch of outfits.  A classic motif and imagery.  Perfect for Pujo.  :)  Also love the joba phool detail.  Mother and Child.  Maa Durga and Ganpu.  The cutest!  REVIEW:  1. The pieces are beautiful and the art lovely.  2. The jewellery i...

Hey everyone! Hope you've had a lovely first weekend of October! I hope your month has gotten off to a good start!  It rained here for a few hours yesterday and today after about a month of no rains, so that was a good thing!  Sharing some lovely printed bookmarks from Bonolawta . Usta is a wonderful artist and you can follow the link to the store on Instagram and order some of these floral and Calcutta-themed bookmarks for yourself!    Always love anything with sunflowers on it! Look how pretty!  Calcutta's famous and cantankerous yellow Ambassador Taxis! Brings back so many memories of summer afternoons and evenings where we'd pile into one of these for a quick trip to an aunt's place or to Gariahat or Dakshinapan! Fun, fun, fun!  Calcutta's these blue-yellow buses are always over-packed and sometimes they look like they are about to fall over! The stuff of nightmares and fascination in equal parts!  Some beautiful watercolour bougainvillea...

  Book: The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club Book #2) Author: Richard Osman  Pages: 422 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  It's the following Thursday. Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus? But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can the Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them? General Thoughts: Last year, deep in the doldrums of the Lockdown, I discovered The Thursday Murder Club and read it without putting it down! The spoiler-free review is here . Do read this pos...

  Hello October! Hello Durga Pujo!  Hello Festivity!  &  Hello Spooky Season!  I am happy you are back!  :)  October is a little bit of magic.  The festive seasons in India kicks off in all it's glory and Durga Pujo lights up my Bengali heart.  This year, I am hopeful and excited to actually step outside and see some of the pandals and Maa Durga.  I even have a few new clothes all lined up for Pujo.  :)  My reading too is shaped by both Durga Puja and Halloween.  So for the first half of the month and certainly during Pujo, I read some Bengali books and then its time to bring all the thriller and horror reads and going allll out with the Spooks.  I am so excited.  To kickstart my reading this month I've already started reading a creepy horror book.  This one.  The Girls are Never Gone:   The Conjuring  meets  Sadie  when seventeen-year-old podcaster Dare takes an internship in a ...