I'm reading My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. My husband Jim and I saw the movie Julie & Julia last summer, and Jim gave me Child's book (and the DVD of the movie) for our wedding anniversary in July. Since then, we've been reading the book out loud at bedtime--a delight, especially since the romance between Julia and Paul was so juicy. I think it's one of the first times I've thought "Glad I saw the movie before I read the book!" Meryl Streep did such a great job of channeling Julia that when we read the book we can see and hear Julia better.
Another book I'm reading is Prayers for Bobby: A Mother's Coming to Terms with the Suicide of Her Gay Son by Leroy Aarons, recommended to me by one of my freshmen comp students. Harrowing reading, especially the excerpts from Bobby Griffith's journal, but a hopeful book because it saves lives. Some of you may have seen the movie based on the book with Sigourney Weaver.
The poetry collection I'm currently reading is The Chain Letter of the Soul: New and Selected Poems by Bill Holm, one of my former colleagues in the English Department at Southwest Minnesota State University who died in February 2009. The book was published posthumously this past summer and brings together new and old poems. Wonderful, well-crafted, earthy, feisty poems--Bill at his best.