The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

  Hello Loves!  July was a strange month, reading wise it was a month marked by impatience. In the sense, I read a decent amount of books but there was also several bouts of reading something and then stopping and picking something else up and feeling disconnected with a lot of what I read.  A strange month.  I read a lot of thrillers. Something about the monsoons makes me want to read as many twisty and dark stories as possible.  I read some literary fiction.  A fair amount of re-reads. I am so happy to be re-united with my books and so happy to re-visit some much loved books. This trend of re-reading is going to be something I stick to the rest of the year too. I want to re-connect with my shelves and find some old loves to read.  So..overall not the best and oddly impatient (dude I DNF-ed close to 10 books) but some gems were read.  Oh, and I also bought some seven books! After months of stopping cold turkey.  :)  Let's jump into it.  JULY READING WRAP-UP:  1. Mother of Manipur

Hello, hello! It is Friday afternoon (here in India) and the weekend is almost here!  If you are looking at a rainy or cozy weekend in, then we've got you covered! Sharing some of our recently watched and loved series and movies that you could, potentially, watch over the weekend!  Let's get into it, shall we? 1. Suzhal: The Vortex on Amazon Prime Video Set in a small town in Tamil Nadu, Suzhal  tells the story of a crime (or two or more) committed during a popular local festival. As the police begin investigating one crime, more and more secrets (past and present) rise up to the surface.  A really interesting, not-so-easy-to-guess and absolutely brilliantly acted series. Highly recommend!  2. Kaiser (Hoichoi)  Two young women are found brutally murdered in their apartment. Gaming addict and brilliant cop- Kaiser Chowdhury- gets on the case and even before he has started properly investigating it, someone attacks him and warns him to not dig into this case.  Who were these two

 Hello Loves!  I have been soooo good about getting my wrap-ups  up on the last day of the month all of this year.  But June rolled around and threw my carefully maintained schedule for a toss. I had just come back home after being away for nearly two years and cleaning and sorting and organizing took over my life.  In fact, all of June was one thing after the other. Packing, planning and sending off boxes full of stuff to Bombay. I spent most of June anxious and on edge.  Ugh! Not my favourite.  I don't think I read a whole lot, most of my reading was done in a blur and in a bid to distract myself. There was one week when I was resting and I read one thriller after the other, because we had a rainy June back in the hometown. And rainy days are just meant for staying in bed and reading thrillers. I hoped to include some Pride Reads since it was Pride Month. And I wanted to read the books I was going to leave behind in the hometown.. June was an OK reading month..not the best, not t

  Book: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow  Author: Gabrielle Zevin  Pages: 383 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~5 hours  Plot Summary:  Two kids meet in a hospital gaming room in 1987. One is visiting her sister, the other is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there. Their love of video games becomes a shared world -- of joy, escape and fierce competition. But all too soon that time is over. When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love - making games to delight, challenge and immerse players, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy. Things I Liked: 1. This book is about video gam

 Hello Loves! It's been forever and a day since I did a Stationery Sunday post.  I've missed it.  Truth be told since my wrist got all messed up thanks to De Quervain's Syndrome my planning and journaling has been quite minimal, because it hurts something special to write. This is my version of hell you guys. I can't wait for my damn wrist to get better and get back to regular programming.  Today I want to share pages from my planner in the last few weeks. A rain themed spread for this very rainy week.  I love these abstract washi tapes from Classiky.  A food and cooking theme spread.  Rains and cleaning.  This was the week I came back home and it was daysss of cleaning and dusting and fretting.  This spread was all about summer and summer colours and well..some sweeties.  I used to Pet Stickers and some Washi Tapes layered.  Some pages from May.  I like picking a colour scheme of sorts and then go on and stick to it and find elements that go together.  Some weeks the s

 Hello Loves!  It's been forever since I did one of this posts and documented my weekend reading on the blog.  Let's fix that shall we?  I've been in such a mood to re-read lately, maybe it has something to do with being reunited with my books after nearly two years. I am looking at my shelves and picking old loves to spend time with. I am loving it.  :)  This is the lot I am hoping to read these next few days.  Five Go To Smuggler's Top by Enid Blyton: It's been two years since I read any Famous Five. So I am more than ready to jump back into this world. I remember pretty much nothing about this book, not surprising since I read this when I was ten. So this will feel brand new. I am all set to get cozy and read this adventure filled caper and hang out with some old faves.  Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie: This is also a re-read. My Dad is finally watching all the Agatha Christie shows (its available on Sony Liv) and I had to pick up a book to keep the vibe going.

  Book: The It Girl  Author: Ruth Ware Pages: 431 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  Everyone wanted her life Someone wanted her dead It was Hannah who found April’s body ten years ago. It was Hannah who didn’t question what she saw that day. Did her testimony put an innocent man in prison?   She needs to know the truth.   Even if it means questioning her own friends. Even if it means putting her own life at risk.   Because if the killer wasn’t a stranger, it's someone she knows. Things I Liked:  1. This is a split/ dual  timeline  book based within the hallowed halls of Oxford University. The narrative moves between the events of present day and the events of 10 years ago leading to the murder of 'it girl'- April. If you've been  reading  this blog for any amount of time you'll know that cold cases, friendship group dynamics and split timeline narratives are some of my favourite tropes in crime thrillers. Picking up this book was an  absolute  no-br

  Book: Listen to Me (A Rizzoli & Isles Book 13)  Author: Tess Gerritsen  Pages: 302 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~3 hours  Plot Summary:  Rizzoli & Isles return, in the nail-biting new thriller from  Sunday Times  bestselling author Tess Gerritsen. The murder of Sofia Suarez is both gruesome and seemingly senseless. Why would anyone target a respected nurse who was well-liked by her friends and her neighbours? As  Detective Jane Rizzoli  and  Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles  investigate the baffling case, they discover that Sofia was guarding a dangerous secret -- a secret that may have led the killer straight to her door. Meanwhile, Jane's watchful mother Angela Rizzoli is conducting an investigation of her own. She may be a grandmother, not a police detective, but she's savvy enough to know there's something very strange, perhaps even dangerous, about the new neighbours across the street. The problem is, no one believes her, not even her own daughter. Immersed in t

 Hello Loves!  Hope this Friday is treating you well.  :)  It's a rainy one in my corner of the world.  For this week's Friday Faves, I want to share a small but beautiful haul from a small shop. One that I came across on IG and bought from back in April I think. The shop is called Kuuuusum and it's owner makes some truly lovely thing.  I love the things we got from the shop and I am so in love with the gorgeous painted creations.  We got three things in total.  Two pouches, that are quite large and roomy.  And one circle sling.  Here is everything.  This Maa Lokhi Sling was love at first sight.  Look at how utterly stunning this is.  I can't wait to carry this out, might just save it for Pujo.  :)  So so so pretty.  The painting is flawless.  The bag itself is fairly roomy.  If you know us, you know how much we love pouches and can't pass up a beautiful pouch.  This one we loved and my sister is already using to store her work journal and a couple of pens. It'

  Book: Listen to Your Heart  Author: Ruskin Bond  Illustrator: Mihir Joglekar  Pages: 104 Publisher: Puffin India  How Long it Took Me to Read: A couple of hours  Plot Summary:   Shortly before his eighteenth birthday, Ruskin embarks on a literary journey and reaches England after charting unknown waters. Greeted by the uncertainties of a new city, he muses over his loneliness, switches jobs, falls in love, befriends the ocean and relentlessly chases a big dream! What follows next is the metamorphosis of a journal entry into a novel as we time-travel to the fascinating events that led to the making of his iconic book,  The Room on the Roof . Capturing memorable experiences from young Ruskin's life,  Listen to Your Heart  is an inspiration for aspiring young writers, a meditation on embracing fears, seizing every opportunity but most importantly living one's dreams. Things I Loved:   1. Reading Ruskin Bond feels like coming home. Reading his stories, both fictional and on

  Book: The Murders at Fleat House  Author: Lucinda Riley  Pages: 473 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~5 hours  Plot Summary:  The sudden death of a pupil in Fleat House at St Stephen’s – a small private boarding school in deepest Norfolk – is a shocking event that the headmaster is very keen to call a tragic accident. But the local police cannot rule out foul play and the case prompts the return of high-flying Detective Inspector Jazmine ‘Jazz’ Hunter to the force. Jazz has her own private reasons for stepping away from her police career in London, and reluctantly agrees to front the investigation as a favour to her old boss. Reunited with her loyal sergeant Alastair Miles, she enters the closed world of the school, and as Jazz begins to probe the circumstances surrounding Charlie Cavendish’s tragic death, events are soon to take another troubling turn. Charlie is exposed as an arrogant bully, and those around him had both motive and opportunity to switch the drugs he took daily to control