YEREVAN BESTSELLER 4/32: “Veronika Decides to Die” debuts in list
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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” tops this week’s Yerevan Bestseller project of ARMENPRESS. It is a philosophical novel , first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The book was published in 1891.
Mark Aren’s “Where wild roses bloom” is ranked 2nd in the list. This is the second novel of the author which 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. The same former serviceman spends his remaining life searching the graves of his parents, without knowing that it was a misunderstanding.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s collection titled “Stories” is ranked third. The collection comprises several famous novels of the Russian writer.
“Veronika Decides to Die” by Paulo Coelho debuted in the list, appearing in the 4th spot. It tells the story of 24-year-old Slovenian Veronika, who appears to have everything in life going for her, but who decides to kill herself. This book is partly based on Coelho's experience in various mental institutions, and deals with the subject of madness. The gist of the message is that "collective madness is called sanity".
Emily Brontë's only novel “Wuthering Heights” is 5th in the list. Written between October 1845 and June 1846, “Wuthering Heights” was published in 1847 under the pseudonym "Ellis Bell"; Brontë died the following year, aged 30.
Although Wuthering Heights is now widely regarded as a classic of English literature, contemporary reviews for the novel were deeply polarised; it was considered controversial because its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was unusually stark, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day, including religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality.
“The Red and the Black” by Stendhal is 6th in the list. It is a historical psychological novel in two volumes published in 1830. It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. He ultimately allows his passions to betray him.
Svetlana Alexievich’s “War's Unwomanly Face” is back in the list and is ranked 7th.
This book is a confession, a document and a record of people's memory. More than 200 women speak in it, describing how young girls, who dreamed of becoming brides, became soldiers in 1941. The author has received a Nobel Prize for literature in 2015.
“The Fault in Our Stars” is the sixth novel by author John Green, published in January 2012. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, in which the nobleman Cassius says to Brutus: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." The novel is ranked 8th.
“Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury is ranked 9th in this week’s list. The story takes place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois, based upon Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois.
“A Room of One's Own” by Virginia Woolf concludes the list. It is an extended essay first published on 24 October 1929. The essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled "Women and Fiction", which was published in Forum March 1929, and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction.
To complete the bestseller list, the following bookshops have participated in the survey: “New Book” (093-60-40-64),“Narek” (51-91-36), “Bookinist” (53-74-13), “Antares” (091-90-01-23) and “Zangak” (23-26-49).