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 Covenant of Water  Author: Abraham Verghese  Pages: 736  Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~8-9 hours, over two days  Plot Summary:  Spanning the years 1900 to 1977,  The Covenant of Water  follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning - and in Kerala, water is everywhere.  At the turn of the century a twelve-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this poignant beginning, the young girl and future matriarch - known as Big Ammachi - will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life, full of the joys and trials of love and the struggles of hardship. A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself,  The Covenant of Water  is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human unde...

 Hello Loves!  2022 has been the year of Historical Fiction for me. My sister has always enjoyed reading from this genre, and in the past whenever I've shared one of these posts- you know, Top Historical Fiction Reads, it's usually always just been her picks. I almost never read from this genre and not because I have something against it, I don't, I am just not drawn to this particular type of book. But something changed in 2022, I just fell in love with all things historical fiction, especially Indian Historical Fiction.  Here are our (my sister and mine) favourite HISTORICAL FICTION BOOKS FOR 2022:   1. The Mendicant Prince by Aruna Chakravarti: The life and death, and then mysterious return of the Sanyasi Raja is a tale that every Bengali has an opinion on. Or you've heard of his remarkable life and the court case that went on for years. It is something I've grown up hearing about and so when this book popped up on my radar, I knew I had to read it. I initially ...

  Book: A Bend in the Ganges  Author: Manohar Malgonkar  Pages: 418  Publisher: Harper Collins  Read On: Paperback Edition  How Long it Took Me To Read: 4 days  Plot Summary:  India, 1939. Gian, a Gandhian pacifist, commits a murder; Debi-dayal, an ardent revolutionary, is caught while setting fire to a British plane. Both men are sent to the Andamans penal colony. In the beehive life of the prison, they work in opposite camps-pro-British and anti-British. During World War II, when the Japanese take over the islands, all the convicts suddenly find themselves free. Gian and Debi manage to return to India only to get sucked into the violence of Partition. An epic saga of a nation in transition, A Bend in the Ganges, now available in a stunning new edition, depicts the cataclysmic events leading up to Partition and the conflict that arises between ideologies of violence and non-violence. Things I Liked:   1. I loved reading books set in In...

 Hello, hello, We are halfway through this week and barely 10 sleeps away from Christmas!  Wanted to share the books my sister and I are currently reading because they are really good and, also, they are by the same author- Manohar Malgonkar.  Both of these are historical fiction (from our perspective) and they were originally written in English as well.  These are the two books... My sister is reading A Bend in the Ganges, which I have already read and really loved! It is based in the years between 1939 to 1947 and documents the lives of two friends/ peers/ college batchmates- one a revolutionary and the other a Gandhian- as they navigate Kala Paani and the rising communal tensions once released.  I am reading 'The Princes'. A really interesting book about a fictitious princely state in modern India, the impact of our independence on the princely state- them having to merge with the Republic of India. This is not a topic that is often written abo...

  Book: The Christie Affair  Author: Nina de Gramont  Pages: 368 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. Only I know the truth of her disappearance. I’m no Hercule Poirot. I’m her husband’s mistress. Agatha Christie’s world is one of glamorous society parties, country house weekends, and growing literary fame. Nan O’Dea’s world is something very different. Her attempts to escape a tough London upbringing during the Great War led to a life in Ireland marred by a hidden tragedy. After fighting her way back to England, she’s set her sights on Agatha. Because Agatha Christie has something Nan wants. And it’s not just her husband. Despite their differences, the two women will become the most unlikely of allies. And during the mysterious eleven days that Agatha goes missing, they will unravel a dark secret that only Nan holds the key to. Things I Liked: 1. The world came to know about Agatha Christie's...

  Book: The Tiger & The Ruby  Author: Kief Hillsbery Pages: 288 Read: The paperback edition (pictured above)  Read in: ~5 hours  Plot Summary:  In 1841, Nigel Halleck left Britain as a clerk in the East India Company. He served in the colonial administration for eight years before leaving his post, eventually disappearing in the mountain kingdom of Nepal, never to be heard from again. A century-and-a-half later, Kief Hillsbery, Nigel’s nephew many times removed, sets out to unravel the mystery. Tracing his ancestor’s journey across the subcontinent, his quest takes him from Lahore to Calcutta, and finally to the palaces of Kathmandu. What emerges is an unexpected personal chapter in the history of the British Empire in India. Things I Liked:  1. This is a  very  different and interesting non-fiction book about the British rule in  India. First, it is written by someone, who saw the British Raj for what it was- a machine to exploit India a...

  Book: Last Night at the Telegraph Club  Author: Malinda Lo  Pages: 366 Read on: Kindle  Read in: 3 hours  Plot Summary:  Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father - despite his hard-won citizenship - Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day .  Things I Liked:  1. The premise of this book sounded  really  interesting. A historical fiction novel with a focus on the Chinese American community at the  height of the 'Red Scare' of the mid-1950s. A teenaged lesbian protagonist. There are very few books out there, if ...

 Hello Loves!  Historical fiction is one of our favourite genres to read and an easy way to travel back in time. This year we read a wide variety of books set across various periods of time. Apart from literary historical fiction, another historical sub-genre we indulged in this year were historical thrillers.  A crime caper set in the world from long, long ago.  We are doing this as a separate list because we had enough books to merit a Top 5 list and if you like thrillers but maybe haven't delved into historical fiction, these books might just be the ticket to get you interested and, hopefully, be a gateway to read more books from this genre.  So here are our TOP 5 Historical Thrillers of 2021 .  1. The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey: Perveen Mistry is a woman we've grown to love. It's always a delight to step back in time and visit her in a Bombay very different from the one I live in. Her stories have been a favourite since the first book in the series...

  Book: Still Life Author: Sarah Winman  Pages: 464 Publiser: PenguinRandomHouse  Read in: ~5 hours Read on: Kindle  Plot Summary:  1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view. Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades. Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End,  Still Life  is a sweeping, joyful novel about beauty, love, family and fate. Things I Liked:  1. I enjoy well written histori...

  Book: Midnight at Malabar House Author: Vaseem Khan  Pages: 336 Read on: Kindle  Read in:  4 hours  Plot Summary:   Bombay, New Year's Eve, 1949 As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift. And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country's most sensational case falls into her lap. As 1950 dawns and India prepares to become the world's largest republic, Persis, accompanied by Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, finds herself investigating a case that is becoming more political by the second. Navigating a country and society in turmoil, Persis, smart, stubborn and untested in the crucible of male hos...

  Book: Vanara  Author: Anand Neelakantan  Publisher: Penguin India Pages:  320  How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 days  Plot Summary:   Baali and Sugreeva of the Vana Nara tribe were orphan brothers who were born in abject poverty and grew up as slaves like most of their fellow tribesmen. They were often mocked as the vanaras, the monkey men. Sandwiched between the never-ending war between the Deva tribes in the north and the Asura tribes in the south, the Vana Naras seemed to have lost all hope. But Baali was determined not to die a slave. Aided by his beloved brother, Sugreeva, Baali built a country for his people. The capital city, Kishkindha, became a beacon of hope for emancipated slaves from across the world. It was a city of the people, by the people, for the people, where there was no discrimination based on caste, creed, language or the colour of skin. For a brief period in history, it seemed as if mankind had found its ideal hero in Baali. B...

  Book: Kohinoor Express  Author: Renil D'Silva  Pages: 413  Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  1850. Governor-General Dalhousie has just won the Third Sikh War and he plans on gifting Queen Victoria the legendary Kohinoor. But the route from Punjab to Bombay, from where it will set sail to England, is infested with bandits. The only person Dalhousie trusts with the mission is the highly decorated Captain James Ramsay. Accompanying him is his beautiful Anglo-Indian mistress, Tara.  Indian revolutionaries, however, are planning to ambush the train, because they know something that Dalhousie doesn’t: the Kohinoor is really the 5,000-year-old  Syamantaka  diamond. Lord Krishna’s stone. To stop it from leaving Indian shores, they will need to enlist the aid of the most wanted bandit, Ajmera. If he agrees, Ajmera will first have to break out of the dreaded  Khoordah  prison, where he has a date with the hangman. And ...

  Book: The Bombay Prince  Author: Sujata Massey  Pages: 400  Read on: Kindle  Read in: 4 hours  Plot Summary:  November 1921. Edward VIII, Prince of Wales and future ruler of India, is arriving in Bombay to begin a fourmonth tour. The Indian subcontinent is chafing under British rule, and Bombay solicitor Perveen Mistry isn't surprised when local unrest over the royal arrival spirals into riots. But she's horrified by the death of Freny Cuttingmaster, an eighteen-year-old female Parsi student, who falls from a second-floor gallery just as the prince's grand procession is passing by her college. Freny had come for a legal consultation just days before her death, and what she confided makes Perveen suspicious that her death was not an accident. Feeling guilty for failing to have helped Freny in life, Perveen steps forward to assist Freny's family in the fraught dealings of the coroner's inquest. When Freny's death appears suspicious, Perveen knows she c...