YEREVAN BESTSELLER 4/64 – ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ leads the list

YEREVAN, JUNE 9, ARMENPRESS. The exclusive project of ARMENPRESS entitled ‘Yerevan Bestseller’brings the top ten bestselling books of Yerevan every week.

Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’leads the bestselling list of the week.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 ‘Unfound Chamomiles’collection comes next. This is the second book of the author. Unfound Chamomiles is about human relationship, love, friendship and betrayal.

Mark Aren’s ‘Where Wild Roses Bloom’is ranked 3rd in this week’s top bestselling book in the city.

The story describes the inner world of an Armenophobic Turkish former serviceman, when he, already an old man, suddenly hears a lullaby song that reminds him of his mother and later finds out that the song is in Armenian: realizing his parents were Armenians. He spends his remaining life searching the graves of his parents, without knowing that it was a misunderstanding.

‘Boys in Zinc’by Belarusian writer and journalistSvetlana Alexievichis ranked 4th in this week’s bestselling list. Certain of her books won Nobel Prize. Hovhannes Ayvazyan translated the books into Armenia.

Milan Kundera’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’this week is ranked 5th. It was published in 1984. The book chronicles the fragile nature of an individual's fate, theorizing that a single lifetime is insignificant in the scope of Nietzsche's concept of eternal return. In an infinite universe, everything is guaranteed to recur infinitely. In 1988, American director Philip Kaufman released a film adaptation.

Stefan Zweig’s ‘Collected Stories’comes next. 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.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s‘The Great Gatsby’is ranked 7th. It was first published in 1925, and is considered one of the typical works of American literature of the "jazz era".

‘Flowers for Algernon’ by David Keyestakes the 8th position in the list. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue ofThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won theHugo Award for Best Short Storyin 1960.

Spencer Johnson’s ‘Who Moved My Cheese’is 9th. 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 Kite Runner’byAfghan-AmericanauthorKhaled Hosseiniconcludes the list.Published in 2003 byRiverhead Books, it tells the story of Amir, a young boy from theWazir Akbar Khandistrict ofKabul, whose closest friend is Hassan, his father's youngHazaraservant. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall ofAfghanistan's monarchythrough theSoviet military intervention, the exodus ofrefugeestoPakistanand the United States, and the rise of theTalibanregime.

Bookinist, Hay Girk, Edit Print and Zangak book stores were surveyed for the project.

YEREVAN BESTSELLERpresented by Angela Hambardzumyan