by Philipp Meyer.

The City and The City by China Mieville.

"Strange Days Indeed" by Francis Wheen.

Also, you'll probably need a cover. If your in the habit of reading in bed, and don't sleep alone, then I'd go for one with the little reading light that is on the end of a retractable arm that goes from one of the corners.(I know, but it looks better than it sounds). It's excellent.

I've mostly read older stuff over the last year, but the best new novels I've read are 'Freedom' by Jonathan Franzen, and 'One Day' by David Nicholls. Both were really good. I'm currently reading Peter Hook's book about the Hacienda on my Kindle - that's not so good.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen is fab. And somehow easier to read on the kindle - the paperback is a right heffer.

I've read in many a year was 'Lean On Pete' by Willy Vlautin.

But Stasiland by Anna Funder really got to me. One of the scariest books I´ve read. One of my closest friends grew up in East Berlin. It´s not even a 90 minute flight from where I live, and still so far away.

1. Star by Peter Biskind

Exceptional biography of Warren Beatty (a much, much more interesting subject then you might think).

2. Hellhound On His Heels by Hampton Sides

Word gave this a great review. It's a real life thriller novel of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Again it's much better than it might sound.

3. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

American WWII pilot undergoes some annoying, awkward experiences at the hands of the Pacific ocean and then the Japanese POW camp system.

4. Freedom

It's good.

5. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

Journalist with an average memory competes at a memory championship after learning the techniques of how to remember things (create unique images for numbers and cards, make the images interact to make bigger numbers then place them in sequence using a mental walk through of a place).

I enjoyed Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh. Memoirs, but reads like a novel.

Atkinson a go, have liked everything of hers I have read, particularly liked the last one one - Started early, took my dog. Don't think the following is on Kindle, but Good Evening Mrs Craven, a selection of wartime stories by Mollie Panter-Downes is a very witty and moving read, published by Persephone - they have a good website and two small shops in that London.

Kindle is a grat device, so long as you just expect it to be an ereader and not a substitute tablet computer. The ease of purchasing books is unbelievable, so smooth, and easy to assemble more books than you can read in a year, so go carefully. Do have a browse around the Amazon Kindle discussion forum. There's quite an issue about pricing: most of us think that the pricing of new books as only slightly less than the physical book, is too much, and if your a true reader then you've probably got lots of books from earlier in life that mean something to you as physical objects. I've had a kindle for about 6 months and it still seems wrong that a book I've purchased and read isn't actually owned by me (it's 'licensed' from Amazon), and I don't have a physical object; nor can I loan the book to anyone else. It's quite a money-machine for Amazon. BUT, as said above, it's a great device, and this third generation is well designed, and knocks spots off all the rivals.

Having a range of reading while travelling, walking, visiting, etc, is a kind of intellectual lifesaver.

Do make yourself familiar with the Project Gutenburg website if you're interested in anything published more than a hundred years ago. This is a site where you can get Kindle-ready etexts for free, so long as the book isout of copyright. It's a noble enterprise. Amazon also sell these out-of-copyright books at 71p a go, which again is free money for them.

Downside 1: all books look the same on the kindle, which is odd, after years of reading. You'll realise that part of the aesthetic experience of a book really is about paper, ink, typography, weight, dimensions, wear and tear, etc, and something is lost in the experience. This is probably a bit like the difference between the vinyl copy of music and an MP3: the content may be the same, but the experience isn't.

Downside 2: The 'white' page isn't very white. Strange this, the brighter the ambient light, the whiter the page you're looking at. Reading in low light ain't great, and the reflectiveness of the white page seems to be yellow-tinted. I would expect future hardware innovations to increase the contrast between the black and white, ie whiten the page. That said, the facility for elkectronic reading outdoors is just fantastic to have.

Downside 3: you mention getting a cover. The ones with the light attachment do drain the battery faster, so I'm told. Put a bedside light on, or buy one of those bookmark clips for a fiver that get sold around Christmastime.

Kindle covers: I'm in two minds about these. The official Amazon ones are definitely robust and give a good level of protection; but they double the bulk and weight of the kindle. This may be an issue; it is for me, and I alternate between one of the Amazon covers and a cheaper neoprene cover, which offers less protection, but is definitely lighter. Also, the Amazon covers don't fold flat around the back of the kindle, so you're always reading with this flappy left-hand side, which I don't like very much. They're expensive. Try to get a look at someone else's before you buy. There are lots of other covers by other manufacturers at comparable or cheaper prices.

What a lot of people don't seem to realise is that having a kindle doesn't mean you're not allowed to read 'real' books as well. It's a supplement, not a replacement. Chill out when people look over your shoulder and then start complaining about the death of real books. If real books die it'll be because people stop reading due to lack of choice, lack of remuneration for enough variety of authors etc etc, same as music, not because a machine came along that made them easier to read.

The web browser is in the Experimental Menu. Amazon's 3G Kindle allows free intenet access. If I'd realised quite what this meant I'd have bought the 3G version for the extra £50.00. For this extra bit of dosh, Amazon are giving you free internet access for life. The web-browsing isn't great, and I need to check out whether Opera mobile can be istalled as a browser, which would improve things immensely. But free internet access on the move, anywhere. Read it again. It means what is says. In practice you don't use it much: a netbook is a far better webreader, but it has its uses.

You may well come to hate, loathe, despise and execrate the preloaded 'screensaver' images. There are about 20 of them. They're pretty bad. They're not actually screensavers, since the screen doesn't experience burnout like old CRT monitors, but they are what the Kindle shows when the device is switched 'off' (= in sleep mode). The most universally hated is the picture of Emily Dickinson. She's a great poet, but no looker. So, further down the line you might want to jailbreak the kindle and install your own screensaver images. This seems a pretty safe thing to do; it's cerainly easy if you're happy moving files around a computer. If you do it, you void the Amazon warranty, and from time to time Amazon release software/firmware updates which install themselves. A jailbroken kindle won't do that, but there is a way to remove the jailbreak and set the kindle back to the way it was. A simple websearch will take you to a couple of sites that set out how to do it.

Did I say that it was a great device? I meant to! I love it. I'm a bit of an in-depth reader, and love the capacity to just access the world's literature of the past ... for free, wherever. Hmm. Wow.

And just to go along with the crowd, 'One Day' is very good, but it only takes about that amount of time to read.

Good luck.

How to you "get" books or The Guardian, into this Calibre thing that I'm told is Kindle compatible. I'm a doofus on these things.

I even gave up on Handbrake for ripping DVD's to the PC as it was too complicated and time intensive!!

I read far more non fiction but McGregor has joined the small list of modern novelists (Russell Banks, TC Boyle, David Mitchell, Ian McEwan and Sebastian Barry are others) whose new work I immediately seek out.

His latest "Even the Dogs" is the best novel I have read so far this year.I'm currently on JG Farrell's "Siege of Krisnapur" and it's a cracking read to date.

The sequel to the equally brilliant e (the first novel where the story was told entirely in emails), and even more hilarious. If you're interested, I wrote this on my blog:

http://firsttimeimettheblues.blogspot.com/search/label/Matt%20Beaumont

Oh, and One Day was pretty damn good as well.

The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal.

Hardly topical, but at the upper limits of fab.

Knew I did two...

By David Mitchell.

You wouldn't think it from the off, but the bulk of this is in fact a ripping yarn.

Having just quantfied it with a label it is as unquantifiable as you would expect from David Mitchell.

What I am trying to say is that it's good and I liked it. A page turner. Or, a page scroller on the Kindle. I suppose.

A troubled woman comes to Ireland in search of her mother and meets a policeman at the end of tether whose life could be at risk. Thrilling plot, flawed but interesting characters, beautifully written.

When The Killing's Done - TC Boyle
Skippy Dies - Paul Murray
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart
A Visit From The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
Boxer, Beetle - Ned Beauman
Pub Walks In Underhill Country - Nat Segnit
You Think That's Bad - Jim Shepard

An excellent memoir

Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes brings the Vietnam War into your bed/ bus / tube/ wherever.

Diametrically opposed and not a novel,

Suggs and the City - rose tinted view of disapearing Lahndan tahn,
Set out not to like it, but did and have passed it onto others who felt exactly the same.

Thoroughly enjoyed these tomes in the last fortnight:

William Boyd "Restless"
Arthur Smith "My Name is Daphne Fairfax"
Martin Amis "The Pregnant Widow"

Nobody else rated Wolf Hall? I was captivated.

Troubles by JG Farrell - Part of his empire trilogy, with a little less derring-do than The Siege of Krishnapur but warmer, perhaps even slightly more human characters and a subtle but compelling insight into the Irish revolution from the Brits' perspective.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde - Fforde's usual wordplay, eccentricity and wild imagination portray a day-glo dystopia where a caste system, based on the colours one can perceive, dominates all social interaction. Absolutely excellent.

Oh yes, and I'll be the gajillionth person to recommend One Day.

One of the first books on Kindle I bought was Belinda Bauer's debut 'Blacklands.' Very good crime fiction novel, I'm just about to start her second novel. Also thought that John Verdon's 'Think of a Number' (another debut) was a different - and much better than average - take on a crime nove. The book I most enjoyed on holiday in January was Sam Lipsyte's 'The Ask' - scathing satire and some great comic prose. Biggest disappointment was the David Nicholls novel. Totally average. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at some of the plaudits thrown its way given the feel-good subject matter, but it really is the sort of book that people who don't usually read books tend to read. I found the male protagonist almost completely unbelievable, and the idea that Emma would allow Dexter as much time to prove what a waste of space he is stretches credulity beyond belief. Call me a snob but what irks is how so much better books don't get anything less as much praise or word of mouth. And the ending is entirely predictable. One thing I’m sure of though is that it’ll prove a hugely successful, but probably, very poorly executed film.

And it was excellent. Hate to use cliches, but it was both heart-warming and gut-wrenching. After previously reading Birdsong, I didn't really need another insight into the horrors of war quite so soon, but it was a great story beautifully told.