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Welcome to the forum, billbirchall.
Ebooks come in lots of different formats. The Sony Reader will read some (but not all) of them. It likes LRF, the Sony proprietary format.
If you buy books in other formats then you may need to convert them. Calibre is an excellent conversion tool. It also has a number of other very useful features.
You can run both Calibre and the Sony Ebook Library software if you wish. It doesn't nullify the warranty. (There is also another free conversion program called Book Designer. Arguably, Calibre is more versatile.)
Incidentally, given that you are new to all this, billbirchall, don't buy books in E-reader format. The Sony won't read them. Several other new people have inadvertently made this error.
If you buy books from the Sony store then they won't need any conversion at all. But they usually have DRM, so you can't convert them to other formats. Some members find this very irritating. They are thinking that in 10 years time they might no longer have a Sony, so won't be able to read their books on their future devices. They prefer to buy their books in lit format and convert them to LRF (maybe saving an HTML version too), so as to future-proof their books.
Also, do look at our own ebook upload section for free public domain and creative commons books, converted by some of our members. (Click on 'ebooks' on the blue bar near the top of the page). There is also advice on other free book sites available on our wiki (click the wiki link at the very top of the page).
Incidentally, I'm in the UK too. I imported my Sony 15 months ago.
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