"Armenpress" introduces 54th bestseller books list

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 7, ARMENPRESS. "The Alchemist" novel by contemporary Brazilian author Paulo Coelho tops this week’s "Bestseller Books List" introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. This book has been translated into 67 languages and according to AFP, it has sold more than 30 million copies in 56 different languages, becoming one of the best-selling books in history and winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author. An allegorical novel, The Alchemist follows a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago in his journey to Egypt, after having a recurring dream of finding treasure there. The Alchemist follows the journey of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Santiago, believing a recurring dream to be prophetic, decides to travel to a Romani in a nearby town to discover its meaning. A gypsy woman tells him that there is a treasure in the Pyramids in Egypt.

Early into his journey, he meets an old king, Melchizedek, who tells him to sell his sheep to travel to Egypt and introduces the idea of a Personal Legend (which is always capitalized in the book). Your Personal Legend "is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is". He adds that "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it". This is the core theme of the book.

"The Great Gatsby" by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald appeared in the second 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.

''The Book of Lamentations'' by St. Gregory of Narek occupies the third position of the list. As far as the pearl of the medieval Armenian literature, which is also known to the public as "Narek" for short, is much in demand in Armenia, "Zangak" printing house introduced the new publication of the book, which appeared in the first horizontal of the list. 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.

"The Thorn, Father, the Thorn" by late Armenian author Levon Khechoyan occupies the fourth position. The Armenian novelist and short story writer, was born in 1955 in the village of Baralet in the Akhalkalack region of Georgia and since 1987lived in the town of Hrazdan in the Kotayk province of Armenia.

In 1983 he graduated from the Armenian Pedagogical Institute receiving an M.A. in philology. Although he started writing as a teenager, his first works were not published until 1988 in local periodicals. His first collection of short stories,Trees of Incense, was published in 1991. Many of his short stories have been translated into Russian and Ukrainian. By 1994 his works periodically appeared in a Moscow-based literary weekly, “Literaturnaya Gazeta” and in literary magazines “Druzhba Narodov”, “Grani” and “Lepta”.

The book titled “My Footgear”, which encloses the memories of the People’s Artist of the Republic of Armenia Sos Sargsyan occupies the fifth position. Outstanding Armenian actor, People's Artist of the Republic of Armenia Sos Sargsyan passed away at the age of 84 on September 26, 2013.

Sos Sargsyan was born in Stepanavan on October 24, 1929. He graduated from the Yerevan Fine Arts and Theatre Institute in 1954. From 1954 he performed at the Sundukyan Drama Theatre of Yerevan. In 1992 he established and headed "Hamazgain" Theatre. 1997-2005 he was the rector of Yerevan Institute of Theatre and Cinema. Besides Armenian films he starred in a number of Russian films, most notable of which is Solaris (1972), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Sos Sargsyan starred in a number of movies including The Musical Team Boys as Artashes, Triangle as Master Mkrtich, Source of Heghnar as Master Mkrtich, Solaris as Dr. Gibarian, Nahapet as Nahapet, Star Of Hope as Movses, The Best Half of Life, Beyond the Seven Mountains as Hovsep, Dzori Miro as Miro, Gikor as Hambo, Sans Famille (TV movie) as Vitalis, Apple Garden as Martin, Yeghishe Charents - Known and Unknown Sides (doc. film), Pharmacy on The Corner as Adamyan, Where Have You Been, Man of God?, (doc. TV mini-series) as Stepham Yesayan, And There Was Light, The Merry Bus as priest, etc.

"Memories of My Melancholy Whores" by Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez is on the sixth horizontal. 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 seventh position. 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.

"The Trial" by Franz Kafka appears in our list for the first time and rapidly occupies the eighth place. The Trial (original German title: Der Process, later Der Prozess, Der Proceß and Der Prozeß) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 but not published until 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed to neither him nor the reader.

Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never completed, although it does include a chapter which brings the story to an end. Because of this, there are some inconsistencies and discontinuities in narration within the novel, such as disparities in timing.

After Kafka's death in 1924 his friend and literary executor Max Brod edited the text for publication by Verlag Die Schmiede. The original manuscript is held at the Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach am Neckar, Germany. In 1999, the book was listed in Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century and as No. 2 of the Best German Novels of the Twentieth Century.

"Nineteen Eighty-Four" dystopian novel by George Orwell first published in 1949 occupies the 9th position. The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstateOceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public mind control, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or, in the government's invented language, Newspeak, called Ingsoc) under the control of a privilegedInner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as "thoughtcrimes". The tyranny is epitomised by Big Brother, the quasi-divine Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality, but who may not even exist. Big Brother and the Party justify their oppressive rule in the name of a supposed greater good. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party who works for theMinistry of Truth (or Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to re-write past newspaper articles so that the historical record always supports the current party line. Smith is a diligent and skillful worker, but he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother.

"Bastard of Istanbul" by Elif Şafak occupies the final position of our list. The book is dedicated to various problems the modern Turkey has to face with. The author pays a lot of attention to the issue of the Armenian Genocide, which has become an insuperable complex in the psychology of the Turks. Elif Şafak's books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and she was awarded the honorary distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.