The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

Using the Holocaust as a metaphor for relationship/ marital problems is just wrong. No excuses can be made for the blatant insensitivity and cruelty of the makers of Bawaal in using one of the most brutal, despicable, horrible genocides in modern history as a metaphor for relationship troubles. No. Nope. This is not how you incorporate any traumatic historical event into a "love story."  If you want to learn more about the Holocaust and read the heart wrenching accounts of those who survived it and also some sensitive works of fiction inspired by the real events that took place in the German concentration camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka etc., then these 10 books are an absolute must-read.  1. Maus by Art Spielgelman is an absolute must-read if you want to know a survivor's account of what it was really like in Auschwitz. Spoiler alert, it wasn't at all like matrimonial troubles. If there is only one book that you'd like to read out of all our 10 recommendations, the...

Hello!  I hope your weekend is off to a good start.  My plans for this weekend are to cook delicious meals and read good books.  Here's What I am Reading///  Baluta by Daya Pawar, Translated by Jerry Pinto: I have been meaning to get to this book forever. One of the first ever Dalit autobiographies, this book is set in the 1950s and 60s Mumbai and parts of it in the author's village. Dealing with his childhood, caste, discrimination and family, this book is a powerful and sadly still just as relevant and needed. It's horrifying that even 50 years later not much has changed when it comes to our (India's) cruelty and caste bias. A book that is in parts hard to read but so important.  Plot Summary:   Baluta caused a sensation when it first appeared, in Marathi, in 1978. It quickly acquired the status of a classic of modern Indian literature and was also a bestseller in Hindi and other major languages. This is the first time that it ha...

Book: Lone Fox Dancing- My Autobiography Author: Ruskin Bond Pages: 277 Read on: Kindle Read in: ~3 hours Plot Summary:  Over sixty years, for numerous readers—of all ages; in big cities, small towns and little hamlets—Ruskin Bond has been the best kind of companion. He has entertained, charmed and occasionally spooked us with his books and stories and opened our eyes to the beauty of the everyday and the natural world. He has made us smile when our spirits are low and steadied us when we’ve stumbled. Now, in this brilliantly readable autobiography—his book of books—one of India’s greatest writers shows us the roots of everything he has written.  He begins with a dream and a gentle haunting, before taking us to an idyllic childhood in Jamnagar by the Arabian Sea—where he composed his first poem—and New Delhi in the early 1940s—where he found material for his first short story. It was a brief period of happiness that ended with his parents’ separation and the un...