YEREVAN BESTSELLER 4/48 - “The Picture of Dorian Gray” again tops the list

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 17, ARMENPRESS. “The Picture of Dorian Gray”byOscar Wilde leads the list of YEREVAN BESTSELLER project of ARMENPRESS.

Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is impressed and infatuated by Dorian'sbeauty; he believes that Dorian’s beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, and he soon is enthralled by the aristocrat'shedonisticworldview: that beauty and sensual fulfillment are the only things worth pursuing in life.

Edgar Harutyunyan’s“The Art of Devotion or Ode to the Rose”is the 2nd in the bestseller list.

Stefan Zweig’s “Collected Stories”is ranked 3rd in the list. Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most popular writers in the world. The book was translated by Ara Arakelyan and Margarit Arakelyan.

“The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”is 4th. Itis a 2006Holocaustnovel byIrish novelistJohn Boyne. Unlike themonths of planning Boyne devoted to his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft ofThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamasin two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end.

Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese”this week is ranked 5th in the list. Published on September 8, 1998, Who Moved My Cheese is amotivationalbusiness fable. The text describes change in one's work and life, and four typical reactions to those changes by twomiceand two "little people," during their hunt forcheese. ANew York Times businessbestsellerupon release,Who Moved My Cheese?remained on the list for almost five years and spent over 200 weeks onPublishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list. It has sold more than 26 million copies worldwide in 37 languages and remains one of the best-selling business books.

The next book in the bestselling list is American writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby", which was first published in 1925, and is considered one of the typical works of American literature of the "jazz era".

"1984" by George Orwell is ranked 7th in the list. The book is labeled as “banned” in many countries of the world.

“Steppenwolf” by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse this week is ranked 8th in the bestseller list. Combiningautobiographicaland psychoanalyticelements, the novel was named after the lonesomewolfof the steppes. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s while memorably portraying the protagonist's split between his humanity and his wolf-like aggression and homelessness.

“The Fault in Our Stars” is the sixthnovelby authorJohn Green, published in January 2012. The book is ranked 9th. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 ofShakespeare's playJulius Caesar, in which the noblemanCassiussays toBrutus: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." The story is narrated by Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old girl withcancer.

“The Grapes of Wrath”concludes this week’s list. This is an Americanrealistnovel written byJohn Steinbeckand published in 1939.The book won theNational Book AwardandPulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded theNobel Prizein 1962.

Set during theGreat Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family oftenant farmersdriven from theirOklahomahome by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in theDust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies” they seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future.

The following bookstores took part in a survey for the bestseller project : Bookinist (53-74-13), Narek (51 91 36), Zangak (23 26 49), Antares (091 90 01 23) and the 7th Bookstore ( 077 24 54 81).

“Yerevan Bestseller” project presented by Angela Hambardzumyan