What I Want to Read: April 2013

I am excited for another reading month! I hope to be able to read at least the three books I need to read to keep up with my goodreads challenge, but with term papers and final exams coming up, I am not sure I will. Nevertheless, I am very excited about my choices for this month, and I am pretty sure, these books will make me want to spend my free time reading! Here are the books I am reading in April:

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

"At the turn of the nineteenth century on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, young, white Lavinia, who was orphaned on her passage from Ireland, arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate, black daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, serve food, and cherish the quiet strength and love of her new family.

In time, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master's opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart from Belle and the other slaves.

Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, The Kitchen House unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds."

Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia #4) by C. S. Lewis

"A prince fights for his crown. Narnia... where animals talk... where trees walk... here a battle is about to begin. A prince denied his rightful throne gathers an army in a desperate attempt to rid his land of a false king. But in the end, it is a battle of honor between two men alone that will decide the fate of an entire world."

Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust by Leanne Lieberman (Advance Reading Copy)

"Lauren Yanofsky doesn't want to be Jewish anymore. Her father is a noted Holocaust historian, and her mother doesn't understand why Lauren hates the idea of Jewish youth camps and family vacations to Holocaust memorials. But when Lauren sees some of her friends - including Jesse, a cute boy she likes - playing Nazi war games, she is faced with a terrible choice: betray her friends or betray her heritage. 

Told with engaging humor, Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust isn't simply about making tough moral choices. It's about a girl caught up in the turmoil of bad-hair days, family friction, changing friendships, love - and, yes, the Holocaust."

Country Girl: A Memoir by Edna O'Brien (Advanced Reading Copy)

"In 1960, Edna O'Brien published The Country Girls, her first novel, which so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. Married with two sons, O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of our time. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. It is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that imprinted and enlivened one lifetime.

Starting with O'Briens birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, and the wild parties of 1960s London that involved people from all walks of life, including stars such as Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, and Paul McCartney. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour trips to America as an acclaimed writer hosted by Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Brilliant and sensuous, Country Girl is a book we are fortunate that Edna O'Brien decided to write."

Have you read any of these books, or haven you been anticipating the release of those that aren't published yet? Tell me in the comments! :)