Mainon's Bookshelf Challenge: 100+ Books in 2011

[Mainon]

1. Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess

Basically, Gael Greene has had a lot of sex and eaten a lot of good food, not necessarily in that order.

[Mainon]

2. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

Scientist from a food lab examines how and why we eat the way we do, and how to change our instinctual habits.

[Mainon]

3. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

Fun little murder mystery. Fast read.

[Mainon]

4. The Street Lawyer

Not my favorite Grisham novel. Started out okay, got fairly boring and predictable, because I think it was at its core it was really meant to be a giant guilt trip on society for not doing enough about homelessness.

[Mainon]

5. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

So glad I read Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street first, otherwise I don't think I would have had much of a grasp on what happened. He does a great job of making a super-opaque subject almost comprehensible, though.

[Mainon]

6. Water for Elephants

LOVED this book, might be first five-star review of the year. Will even go see the movie despite the Twilight douche being in it.

[Mainon]

7. French Pressed

Another frothy little niche murder mystery.

[Mainon]

8. Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

Another Ruth Reichl memoir. The beginning was jaw-droppingly fascinating, but it fizzled toward the end. For my money, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise is her better book.

[Mainon]

9. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc

Southern belle-cum-housewife has a mid-life crisis and hooks up with her old high-school sweetheart. Mostly ho-hum, with one surprising twist midway through that saved it from being a horrendous bore.