Tom Hanks picks his best books of the year

If you’re looking for book ideas for Xmas why not take some recommendations from Hollywood? Tom Hanks has posted his best books of 2007 on his MySpace profile blog - myspace.com/tomhanks.

THE YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSHOP by Lewis Buzbee. A sweet memoir of selling books, reading books, stacking books and simply loving books in some of the greatest - and lost - bookstores of Northern California.

THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR by Andrew Keen, a smart writer who would see the irony of my mentioning his book on a MySpace Webpage.

THE LAY OF THE LAND by Richard Ford. This hilarious fictional exposes the reality of selling real estate in Jersey. I'll be looking for all the others in Ford's series.

THE TOURISTS by Jeff Hobbs, an anthropological study of New Yorkers who graduated from Yale and have yet to recover. I read this one like lightning.

THE RUM DIARY by Hunter S. Thompson. Makes you want to toss everything and head to Puerto Rico, write for a newspaper, drink nothing but rum, and live like Thompson. It makes such a life look glamorous and fun. So authentic and effective, I felt hung over and needed a long nap when I finished.

THE DIANA CHRONICLES by Tina Brown. A very fair book, I thought. Read it as a companion piece to "The Queen", with Helen Mirren and Directed by Stephen Frears.

WHITETHORN WOODS by Maeve Binchy. I am a sucker for Maeve's books. All of them. And this book is told in a long chain of individual, linking stories. The woman amazes me.

What have you been reading?