The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

 Trying to find a moment of peace and ways to soothe myself on a stressful day.  Read a bit.  Sipped my coffee.  A cute/fave corner of home.  A good book.  An old beloved bookmark.  ///Things that bring me comfort. ///

 There's nothing quite like a slow and sloth-like Saturday.  Here's what my day looked like:  Currently Reading: A memoir about love, war and marriage. I am a little bit in and quite intrigued.  New month.  New mug.  Also reading this very interesting book about overthinking and magical thinking. 

 Hello Loves!  End of the month means talking about every single book I read this month.  November felt so long...yet I can't quite believe it's done and dusted.  It felt like an activity filled blur.  Of doing things. Reading things.  Finding joys and trying to squeeze in some non-fiction reads for #nonfictionnovember.  I am happy to report, I read four non-fiction books, two volumes of poetry and a book rooted in a real true crime case.  A good, solid reading month.  I read 20 books in total and I am very happy with everything I read.  :)  So let's just jump into it and talk books.  BOOKS OF NOVEMBER 2022:  1. Cultish by Amanda Motell: I love reading about Cults and everything sinister and off-kilter that goes on in these place.  Why do people join?  What makes perfectly normal people willing to give up their free will and follow orders, often to a messy and fatal end?  I have always liked cults and found...

  Book: Normal Family  Author: Chrysta Bilton  Publisher: Little Brown & Co.  Pages:  336   Read On: iPad  How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 days  Plot Summary:   For most of her life, Chrysta Bilton was one member of a small, if dysfunctional, family of four. There was her sister, Kaitlyn, her hedonistic, glamorous, gay mum Debra, and Jeffrey, who Debra hand-picked, in an LA hairdressers, to be the father of her children. During Chrysta's unstable childhood, Debra struggled to keep the family afloat and Jeffrey wandered in and out of their lives. Then, in her twenties, Chrysta discovered that her father had secretly donated his sperm over 500 times - and that she had at least 35 other siblings. A Normal Family  is a captivating coming-of-age memoir about Chrysta's reckoning with the secrets both parents had carefully kept from her. Heartfelt, warm and funny, it's a story of embracing the family we have, in all the forms we fi...

  Hello November!  Hello Fall!  Hello Scorpio Season!  Hello Sister's Birthday Month!  :)  I am happy you are here November.  I started my month with doing the things I usually do on the first day of the month.  I set up my Bujo pages, did up my journal and even set up my Book Journal for the month.  A very stationery heavy morning and the kind of thing I love.  November Page in my Bujo.  Added some autumnal colours and a little doggo in a sweater!  Too cute.  Of course I did a little bit of reading.  I am still reading my Halloween Read but I also started on a new book in honour of Non-Fiction November.  I adore this little Niffler dude on my bookmark. He's most cute.  The Book of Indian Ghosts by Riksunder Banerjee: I started reading this for Halloween and I am still reading this and loving this deep dive into all kinds of ghosts found in India. Such a good read.  Cultish by Amanda Montell: My first...

 Hello, hello, I am for most part a fiction reader and a fiction lover. I have always been drawn to fiction more than any other genre under the sun. Lately, in the last few years I've tried to branch out and read and incorporate more non-fiction in my life. I don't think there will ever be a time when the scales will dip towards non-fiction in my life but I would like to read more from this varied genre.  Non-fiction books are interesting because they tell real stories about people from different walks of life. This year, I read some really interesting ones across sub-genres and I thought I'd share my favourites here.  Let's get to it, shall we?  1. Childhood Days by Satyajit Ray: This year was Ray's Centenary and a lot of things went Ray themed. I started my reading year with Ray and read a lot of his work. So of course I read his childhood memoir too. Full of stories from his earliest years, some memories of his father and his childhood home up to his early years ...

 Hello Loves!  I don't know what it's about November that makes me slow down and lose a little steam. Maybe it's winter making it's presence felt. Or maybe I take a break in anticipation of December and some marathon blogging.  Whatever the reason maybe, I slow down glacial come November.  I have blogged only 4 times all this month and it makes me sad to ignore this space.  So let's do a little bit of a catch up shall we?  Here's a little glimpse of what my November has looked like.. I hope you guys had a happy and safe Diwali.  Ours was warm and cozy.  We stayed in.  Lit lights and diyas.  Cooked up a storm.  Watched some films. It was allll good.  A little Reading Update.  Reading has been good. Really quite good so far this month. Earlier this month I made a TBR and you know what? I am actually kinda sticking to it!  What even!  I have also managed to incorporate some non-fiction reading into my reading for No...

Book: Haunted Author: Jay Alani and Neil D'Silva Pages: 288 Publisher: Penguin India Read On: Kindle How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:   An entire town that was abandoned overnight A fort that fell to ruins due to a curse Mines where twenty thousand miners were trapped and perished A village where black magic is a way of life A fair where exorcisms are performed in public Such are the locations dotting the colourful paranormal map of India. Intrepid adventurers and regular tourists alike have often dared to visit these places to experience for themselves their fascinating lure, and to see if ghosts truly haunt these regions. However, those who have ventured there have often returned with more questions than answers-if at all they have returned. Haunted  chronicles the real-life adventures of paranormal investigator Jay Alani in ten of the spookiest locations in India.  Co-authored by Neil D'Silva, these exploits provide a ringsid...

Book: Sold Author: Patricia McCormick Pages: 227 Publisher: Walker Books Read On: Paperback How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days Plot Summary:   T hirteen-year-old Lakshmi lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though they are desperately poor, Lakshmi’s life is full of simple pleasures: playing hopscotch with her best friend, looking after her black-and-white speckled goat, having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when Lakshmi’s family lose all that remains of their crops in a monsoon, her stepfather says she must leave home and take a job in the city. Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India full of hope for her new life, proud to be able to earn, daring to hope that she will make enough money to make her mother proud too. Then she learns the unthinkable truth: for 10,000 rupees she has been sold into prostitution. General Thoughts: I am trying to read as much non-fiction as I can manage in the month of N...

Book: The Corpse That Spoke Author: Sidin Vadukut Pages: 102 Publisher : Juggernaut  Read On: iPad via the Juggernaut App How Long it Took Me to Read: 2 hours Plot Summary:   Amarjit Chohan was a British-Indian entrepreneur with a thriving business, a gorgeous family and a chequered past. In February 2003 he disappeared with his family, having handed his firm to a new owner. Two months later the bodies began to wash up. The investigation that followed stunned Britain General Thoughts: With NonfictionNovember on this month, I do want to read some non-fiction titles this month. I don't know which books exactly but I want to read at least 5 non-fiction before the month is up. If you know me or have followed my blog for a while, you might know that I am a fiction reader through and through. I am not really drawn to non-fiction books. Stories make my world go around. So it will be a little bit of a personal challenge to read more non-fiction. Things I Lik...