YEREVAN, JULY 25, ARMENPRESS. "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez tops this week's "Bestseller Books List" introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" again by Márquez occupies the second position. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia.

The widely acclaimed book, considered by many to be the author's masterpiece, was first published in Spanish in 1967, and subsequently has been translated into thirty-seven languages and has sold more than 30 million copies. The magical realist style and thematic substance of One Hundred Years of Solitude established it as an important, representative novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, which wasstylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Vanguard) literary movement. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

"Memories of My Melancholy Whores" again by Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez occupies the third place in this week's "Bestseller Books List". The book was translated into Armenian from the Russian version by Hovhannes Ayvazyan in 2010. "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" is dedicated to the love affairs of an old journalist, who falls in love with a young girl.

"The Little Prince" by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry occupies the fourth place of this week's "Bestseller Books List". The novella is both the most read and most translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. The book was translated into more than 250 languages and dialects, as well as Braille.

Saint-Exupéry, a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and a reserve military pilot at the start of the Second World War, wrote and illustrated the manuscript while exiled in the United States after the Fall of France. He had travelled there on a personal mission to persuade its government to quickly enter the war against Nazi Germany. In the midst of personal upheavals and failing health he produced almost half of the writings he would be remembered for, including a tender tale of loneliness, friendship, love and loss, in the form of a young prince fallen to Earth.

"Like Every Evening" by renowned Iranian-Armenian writer and novelist Zoya Pirzad occupies the fifth place. Pirzad's first novel, Cheragh-ha ra man khamush mikonam ("I Will Turn Off the Lights"; published in English as Things We Left Unsaid) has been published numerous times in Iran and has been translated to several languages. She won the Hooshang Golshiri Literary Award for The Best Novel of the Year for her "superb characterization, ingenious representation of the conflicting emotions of a woman, creating suspense through defamiliarization of everyday life, creating a language in perfect harmony with the theme and characters of the novel".

"Charents-Name" by Gourgen Mahari has been included in our list. One cannot find any other two names, which will be so closely tied with each other spiritually and personally, as Yeghishe Charents and Gourgen Mahari. Charents was one of the most outstanding poets of the twentieth century, touching upon a multitude of topics that ranged from his experiences in the First World War, socialism, and, more prominently, on Armenia and Armenians. His works were translated by Valeri Bryusov, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Louis Aragon and others. His famous poems are: Three songs to the sad and pale girl...", poems (1914), "Blue-eyed Homeland", poem (1915), "Soma", poem (1918), "Charents-Name", poem (1922), "Country of Nairi" (Yerkir Nairi) (1926), "Epical Sunrise", poems (1930), "Book of the Way", poems (1933-34), and many others.

"The Reader", novel by German writer Bernhard Schlink, which occupies the seventh position of the bestseller books list introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. The Reader by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink was published in Germany in 1995 and in the United States in 1997. The story is a parable, dealing with the difficulties post-war German generations have had comprehending the Holocaust.

And "The Picture of Dorian Gray" occupies the eighth position of our list. This is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. The magazine's editors feared the story was indecent as submitted, so they censored roughly 500 words, without Wilde's knowledge, before publication. But even with that, the story was still greeted with outrage by British reviewers, some of whom suggested that Wilde should be prosecuted on moral grounds, leading Wilde to defend the novel aggressively in letters to the British press. Wilde later revised the story for book publication, making substantial alterations, deleting controversial passages, adding new chapters and including an aphoristic Preface which has since become famous in its own right. The amended version was published by Ward, Lock and Company in April 1891. Some scholars believe that Wilde would today have wanted us to read the version he originally submitted to Lippincott's.

"The Great Gatsby" by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald appeared in the ninth position. The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream.

First published by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly; in its first year, the book only sold 20,000 copies. Fitzgerald died in 1940. His work, spearheaded by The Great Gatsby, experienced a revival during World War II, and the novel became a part of high school curriculum in the following decades. The book has remained popular since, leading to numerous stage and film adaptations. The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic and a contender for the title "Great American Novel". The book is consistently ranked among the greatest works of American literature.

St. Gregory of Narek’s ''The Book of Lamentations'' published by “Nairi” publishing house occupies the final position of the bestseller books list introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. The mystical poem "Book of Lamentations" has been translated into many languages and has played a significant role in the development of the Armenian literary language. In 95 grace-filled prayers St. Gregory draws on the exquisite potential of the Classical Armenian language to translate the pure sighs of the broken and contrite heart into an offering of words pleasing to God. The result is an edifice of faith for the ages, unique in Christian literature for its rich imagery, its subtle theology, its Biblical erudition, and the sincere immediacy of its communication with God. This masterpiece by St. Gregory of Narek has always been included in our bestseller books list. 

Completed by Roza Grigoryan