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...

  Book: The Hidden Palace Author: Dinah Jefferies  Pages: 528  Read on: Kindle Read in: 5+ hours  Plot Summary:  A rebellious daughter 1925.  Among the ancient honey-coloured walls of the tiny island of Malta, strangers slip into the shadows and anyone can buy a new name. Rosalie Delacroix flees Paris for a dancer’s job in the bohemian clubs deep in its winding streets. A sister with a secret 1944.  Running from the brutality of war in France, Florence Baudin faces a new life. But her estranged mother makes a desperate request: to find her vanished sister, who went missing years before. A rift over generations Betrayals and secrets, lies and silence hang between the sisters. A faded last letter from Rosalie is Florence’s only clue, the war an immovable barrier – and time is running out.  Things I Liked:  1. Dinah Jefferies writes historical fiction books set in different parts of the world  during  World War II. The first book in th...

Hello!  Even in ordinary circumstances, books are my solace. When life seems unbearable or even mildly inconvenient, I turn to books to pull me out of my world and transport to somewhere, anywhere else.  So when the world is a hot mess, like it is right now, of course I find comfort in my shelves, in stories and people having a much better time than any of us.  Especially now, books are my everything. Well, books and Vim Liquid...my jhadu and my magical skinny mop...but books are right there on the top of my list..I promise. I also think that now is perfect time to read happy books.  Books full of joy, heart warming characters, fuzzy feelings and just oodles and oodles of comfort. Hence this post.  A post dedicated solely to some Happy Book Recommendations.  I will say though, I don't often read that many happy books.  Murder. Mayhem. Moodiness.  :)  Angst.  History.  I am quite surprised that...

Book: The World That We Knew Author: Alice Hoffman Pages: 400 Publisher: Scribner How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days Read On: Kindle Plot Summary: I n Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it’s his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked. Lea and Ava travel from Paris, where Lea meets her soulmate, to a convent in western France known for its silver roses; from a school in a mountaintop village where three thousand Jews were saved. Meanwhile, Ettie is in hiding, waiting to become the fighter she's destined to be. What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacri...

Book: So Much Life Left Over Author: Louis De Bernières Pages: 288 Read: The paperback pictured above Read in: 4 hours or so Plot Summary:  A sweeping, heartbreaking novel following Daniel in his troubled marriage with Rosie as they navigate the unsettled time between the World Wars. Rosie and Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their little daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them, and to rekindle a marriage that gets colder every day. However, even in the lush plantation hills it is hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage. Back in England, Rosie's three sisters are dealing with different challenges in their searches for family, purpose and happiness. These are precarious times, and they find themselves using unconventional means to achieve their desires. Around them the world is changing, and when Daniel finds himself in Germany...

Book: Beneath a Scarlet Sky Author: Mark Sullivan  Pages: 526  Read on: Kindle via Kindle Unlimited  Read in: 6-7 hours over three days  Publisher: Lake Union Publishing  Plot Summary: P ino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders. Now, with the opportunity to spy f...

Book: The House by the Lake Author: Ella Carey Pages: 234 Read in: 3 hours Read on: Kindle Plot Summary:  Anna is content with her well-ordered life in San Francisco. But her world is turned upside down when her beloved grandfather, Max, reveals a startling secret: Anna is part of an aristocratic family who lost everything during World War II. What’s more, Max was forced to leave behind a precious item over seventy years ago in their estate in old Prussia. It’s now his ardent wish that Anna retrieve it. Anna burns with questions as she heads for Germany: What memento could be so important to her grandfather? And why did he keep their history hidden? As she searches for answers, she finds herself drawn to Wil, a man who may hold the key to unlock the mystery. Together they discover that her family’s secrets are linked with an abandoned apartment in Paris, and these secrets go deeper than she ever imagined. Alternating between 1930s Europe and the present,  Th...

Book: The Nightingale Author: Kristin Hannah Pages: 437 Read: The paperback edition pictured above Read in: 4-5 hours Plot Summary:  In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are. FRANCE, 1939 In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another. Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march int...

Book: Salt to the Sea Author: Ruta Sepetys Pages: 400 Read: The paperback edition pictured above Read in: 3 hours straight (it's THAT good!) Plot Summary:  It's early 1945 and a group of people trek across Germany, bound together by their desperation to reach the ship that can take them away from the war-ravaged land. Four young people, each haunted by their own dark secret, narrate their unforgettable stories. This inspirational novel is based on a true story from the Second World War. When the German ship the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in port in early 1945 it had over 9000 civilian refugees, including children, on board.  Review: Things I LOVED about this book:  1. First of all, Ruta Sepetys is an author that everybody needs to read. She tells stories about World War II that no history book would tell you and whilst doing that, she manages to infuse some real humane-ness to the events, characters and incidents. We have read and loved two of her pr...

Book: All The Light We Cannot See Author: Anthony Doerr Pages: 531 I read: The Kindle version I read it in: 5-6 hours Plot Summary: Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, ...

Book: Code Name Verity Author: Elizabeth Wein Pages: 441 I read it on: My Kindle I read it in: 5 hours (over a few days) Plot Summary:  Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution. As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets ...