Books: Paperback top 10

1 Charlotte Gray Sebastian Faulks/Vintage pounds 6.99

SOE shenanigans in perfect period underwear

2 About a Boy Nick Hornby/Indigo/pounds 6.99

Feckless male makes friends with fatherless lad

3 Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire A Foreman/Flamingo pounds 8.99

That irrepressible Spencer woman

4 Amsterdam Ian McEwan/Vintage pounds 6.99

Below-par Booker winner picks up sales

5 A Widow for One Year John Irving/Black Swan pounds 7.99

Bereaved female novelist at three stages of her life

6 Another World Pat Barker/Penguin pounds 6.99

Magnificent, subtle ghost story with WWI flashbacks

7 The Loop Nicholas Evans/Corgi pounds 5.99

Wolf whisperer

8 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden/Vintage pounds 6.99

Highly recommended by Tamara Beckwith

9 The Tesseract Alex Garland/Penguin pounds 6.99

Four complex, interlocking tales set in the Philipinnes

10 Stalingrad Antony Beevor/Penguin pounds 12.99

Not exactly holiday reading (see Pantheon, opposite)