YEREVAN BESTSELLER 4/74 – ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’ returns to list

YEREVAN, AUGUST 18, ARMENPRESS. The exclusive project of ARMENPRESS entitled ‘Yerevan Bestseller’brings the top ten bestselling books of Yerevan every week.

Edgar Harutyunyan’s ‘Unfound Chamomiles’is this week’s bestselling book of Yerevan. This is the second book of the author. ‘Unfound Chamomiles’ is about human relationship, love, friendship and betrayal.

Like the previous week, this week as wellMark Aren’s ‘Where Wild Roses Bloom’is ranked 2nd.

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.

‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’this week is ranked 3rd. 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.

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.

Nobel Prize LaureateSvetlana Alexievich’s ‘The Last Witnesses’is 5th.

Alexievich is aBelarusianinvestigative journalistand non-fiction prose writer who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015Nobel Prize in Literature"for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time".She is the first writer from Belarus to receive the award.

‘TheAlchemist’by Brazilian writerPaulo Coelhois 6th.Originally written inPortuguese, it became an international bestseller translated into some 70 languages as of 2016. Anallegoricalnovel,The Alchemistfollows a youngAndalusianshepherd in his journey toEgypt, after having a recurring dream of finding treasure there.

‘Dandelion Wine’, 1957novelbyRay Bradburythis week is ranked 7th. The novel is taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois, based upon Bradbury's childhood home ofWaukegan, Illinois. It was translated from English by Zaven Boyadjyan.

Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’is ranked 8th in 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.

‘Fahrenheit 451’ byRay Bradburycomes next. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel published in 1953. It is regarded as one of his best works. The novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The title refers to the temperature that Bradbury understood to be the autoignition point of paper.

‘Flowers for Algernon’ by David Keyesconcludes this week’s 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.

The following bookstores took part in a survey for the bestseller project: Bookinist (53-74-13), Hay Girk (54-07-06) and Zangak (23 26 49).

Yerevan Bestseller project presented by Angela Hambardzumyan