Coral Glynn by Peter Cameron

Coral Glynn
by Peter Cameron
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012
210 pages
source: borrowed from the library

Motivation: Cosy Book's review

Summary (from amazon):

In the spring of 1950, Coral Glynn arrives at an isolated mansion in the English countryside to nurse the elderly Edith Hart. There, Coral meets Hart House’s odd inhabitants: Mrs. Prence, the perpetually disgruntled housekeeper, and Major Clement Hart, her charge’s war-ravaged son. When a child’s game goes violently awry in the nearby woods, a great shadow—love, perhaps—descends upon its residents. Other seemingly random events—a torn dress, a missing ring, a lost letter—propel Coral and Clement precipitously into the mysterious thicket of marriage.

Written with his unique sense of wit and empathy, Peter Cameron’s brilliant novel is a stunning exploration of how need and desire can blossom into love—and just as quickly transform into something less categorical.


Brief thoughts:

This contemporary novel has a distinctly vintage feel that seemed (to me) vaguely reminiscent of Rebecca.  It's an odd, atmospheric little book set mainly in an English country house. In fact, the word "odd" appears with alarming frequency.  I didn't count myself, but another reader reported over 50 instances in the 210 pages.

The story takes several unexpected turns, becoming slightly dark and sinister at times, yet Coral, a visiting nurse, remains an enigma throughout. She makes the strangest statements and choices, and I never could figure out what made her tick. As a result, I felt slightly off-balance the entire time.

I'm not sure if I truly liked Coral Glynn, but it was perfect R.I.P. reading.

A few quotes:

"For a moment she thought perhaps it was enough to have come this far, to have merely seen him. Because she did not know exactly why she had come, or what she exactly wanted, it was difficult to know what to do or when to leave." 

"What a hard, unsatisfying word: "friendship." It was worth very little, friendship. It did not keep you warm at night. You could not even touch it. Friendship gave you a little bit of something you needed a lot of, slowly starving you, weakening you, breaking you down." 

"But you see, as I have never completely had him, I have always missed him. Parts of him. Perhaps it is better to lose something entirely than to clutch at pieces of it."

Bottom line:
An unusual R.I.P. read, vaguely reminiscent of Rebecca.

My rating:

This Week in the Kitchen #2, Plus a Pin It and Do It Wrap-Up

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.


It's been a relatively slow week in the kitchen (seems like one of us was out almost every evening), but I still managed to try a couple of new recipes.

Crab bisque is one of our favorite soups and I've use the same recipe for twenty years. My cousin's wife found it taped inside the cupboard door of a Virginia Beach cottage. It is delicious and over the years I've tweaked it a little, but never really liked the fact that condensed cream of celery soup was at its core, even if it is fat-free.

My husband loves this recipe, but I'm ready for a change. Stephanie O'Dea's Make It Fast, Cook It Slow contains a recipe for Fish Chowder that looked easy, so I decided to give it a try.

It smelled a little too fishy to me as it bubbled in the slow cooker, but it tasted pretty good. I used frozen tilapia filets (any white fish should work) and added cooked shrimp for the last twenty minutes. Next time I'll consider adding crab meat and scallops, too.

This recipe called for just 1/4 teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning, but I doubled that amount and added a little garlic salt, too. The recipe* is  available on her blog - that's where I found the photo, too.

*Note: The online recipe omits Old Bay seasoning, but it's included in the cookbook version. I think the chowder would be far too bland without it.

The other new recipe this week was Smoky Maple-Mustard Salmon (my pin) from Delish.com. It was so simple and delicious! The smoked paprika adds wonderful flavor, while the whole grain dijon mustard enhances the texture. It took literally 15 minutes to get dinner on the table. I wouldn't change a thing! The photo is from Pinterest.

photo credit

And finally, although not food-related, I've discovered a few new ways to to tie my favorite scarves.

Thanks, Trish, for hosting another round of Pin It and Do It. It has become my favorite challenge!

JFK's Last Hundred Days by Thurston Clarke (audio)

JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President
by Thurston Clarke
Narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner
Penguin Audio, 2013
14 hours and 48 minutes
source: review copy from publisher

Motivation: a long-standing fascination with the Kennedy family

One sentence summary (from goodreads):
A revelatory, minute-by-minute account of JFK’s last hundred days that asks what might have been.

My thoughts:
Where were you on 11/22/63? If you're over fifty, chances are you have both an answer and a story to go with it. As we approach the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, they are bound to be shared. Historians, too, are re-examining many aspects of that tragic time and, naturally, we're seeing a  long list of new Kennedy books being published.

What makes Clarke's book both different and effective is its structure. He begins with Day 100 in August 1963 and moves forward through the fall counting down the days, chronicling Kennedy's activities, meetings, and personal life. The reader cannot help but feel an increasing sense of dread as the days tick away and the end approaches.

The book was fascinating and presents Kennedy in a very favorable light. One can't help but wonder what if...

A note on the audio production:
This was the first time I've listened to Malcolm Hillgartner and he was excellent. With a wide variety of accents, his voice lends itself very well to nonfiction. In fact, I'm currently listening to another of his narrations (The Patriarch  by David Nasaw).

As usual with nonfiction audiobooks, you'll want to visit your  library or bookstore to look at the photos Clarke has included with the text.

My rating:

Wordless Wednesday: The Mount

The Mount

Edith Wharton's home in Lenox, MA

Tuesday Intro: Coral Glynn

That spring --the spring of 1950-- had been particularly wet. 

An area at the bottom of the garden at Hart House flooded, creating a shallow pool through which the crocuses gamely raised their little flounced heads, like cold shivering children in a swimming class. The blond gravel on the garden paths had turned green, each pebble wrapped in a moist transparent blanket of slime, and one could not sit on either of the two cement benches that flanked the river gate without first unhinging the snails and slugs adhered to them. 

The excessive moisture of the garden was of no concern to anyone at Hart House except for the new nurse, who had arrived on Thursday, and had attempted, on the two afternoons that were somewhat mild, to sit outside for a moment, away from the sickness and strain of the house. But she found the garden inhospitable, and so had resolved to stay indoors.

Coral Glynn
by Peter Cameron

After reading about this title at Cosy Books a couple of weeks ago, I decided to request a copy from my library. I'd never heard of the author, but tend to love novels set in an English country home. Although published in 2012, the book has a much older and slightly ominous feel. It may even turn out to be suitable for RIP.

What do you think of the opening? Would you keep reading?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

A November Readalong

You all know how much I enjoy a good readalong, right? Well, I was pretty happy to learn that Melissa and Care are teaming up for a November Readalong of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. It's going to be pretty low key - begin reading in November, post some thoughts mid-month (if you want to), and wrap it all up December 1. We will also use the hashtag #ReadCalvino to keep in touch via twitter.

That sounds pretty simple, plus it's a short book and I've been curious about it for a long time. I'm especially glad to be reading this one with friends since Calvino intimidates me. Actually, anything even vaguely experimental intimidates me.

Here is the summary from goodreads:

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler  is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration--"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.  In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next. 

The real Calvino intersperses 10 different pastiches--stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition--with explorations of how and why we read, make meanings, and get our bearings or fail to. Meanwhile the Reader and Ludmilla try to reach, and read, each other. If on a Winter's Night  is dazzling, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. "What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space."

Intrigued? Check out Melissa's and Care's announcement posts - they convinced me!

Weekend Cooking: Mad About Mussels

Inspired by Trish's latest Pin It and Do It Challenge, this week's post is about my experience preparing mussels at home. I love most types of fish and shellfish, but only developed a taste for mussels within the past couple of years. Actually, I never even tried them until our favorite local restaurant began offering Thai Curry Mussels as an appetizer. Initially I sampled just the broth from my husband's bowl, but the second time we ordered it I had worked up the courage to try a mussel, too. I suppose that over the years I'd convinced myself I didn't like them, and was shocked to discover they were delicious!

We soon found ourselves splitting mussels as an appetizer whenever the opportunity presented itself. The range of flavors was astonishing and I began to wonder if I could replicated any of them at home. Wegmans almost always has fresh mussels available, but a little research was necessary.

As I began pinning recipes, it hit me that I didn't know how to clean or prep the mussels. A quick search turned up this pin which lead to the article "How to Clean Mussels" at allrecipes.com. It told me all I needed to know... with photos. A Pinterest win!

The first recipe I tried was this pin for Curried Mussels from A Beautiful Bite. It was very tasty, but with heavy cream and full-fat coconut milk, not quite as healthful as I would have liked. It also had a strong Indian flavor, not like the Thai from our local restaurant. A qualified success, but I was so wrapped up in the preparation that I forgot to take a picture. This one if from Pinterest.

Next up was Mussels with White Wine from epicurious.com (my pin). The cooking technique was the same as my first attempt, but this recipe was much lighter and more to our taste. It definitely earned on spot in my recipe collection. I even remembered to photograph the finished product, although the one from the website looks much more appealing.

Sometime over the next couple of weeks, I plan to try Thai Steamed Mussels. This could be even closer to the restaurant dish. We'll see...

Do you like mussels? Have you prepared them at home? I'm open to suggestions.

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.