The end of the year and the beginning of a new one is the best time to take stock. This is done by both simple office workers and politicians, businessmen, housewives and schoolchildren. Book publishers did not stand aside. What exactly do Russians read, and which books did they like the most in the past 2019? This will tell the rating of the best-selling books in Russia according to Forbes Lite magazine.
10. “While the river flows”
Posted by: Diana Setterfield
The first novel of this British writer, "The Thirteenth Tale," thundered around the world. The second turned out to be neither fish nor meat. But the third, according to some critics, even surpassed the first.
His beginning is Victorian-Gothic: on the longest night of the year, a stranger burst into the village tavern with a dead girl in her arms. The girl suddenly came to life (of course, otherwise there would be no sense in writing a book) and the Setterfield polyphony began. Many people tell different stories, but in the end all these streams merge into one mighty and full-flowing river.
9. “The house in which the light burns”
Author: Elchin Safarli
Warm and pulp fiction, which is especially drawn to plunge into long winter evenings. Safarli’s creation continues a long series of books about nothing, which reached its peak in Coelho’s work.
An elderly woman lives on the seashore, makes jam, seals it in transparent little jars and writes letters to her granddaughter. These letters are full of sayings, which are full of pages on social networks. “Wisdom and experience grow out of doubt”; "Where there is no love, there is all a mistake."
In total, last year, judging by sales, about 44 thousand people touched such wisdom.
8. “The Other Truth”
Posted by: Alexandra Marinina
It seemed that the queen of the action-packed detective story about Kamenskaya, a woman - a computer, had long and hopelessly switched to long family sagas, only slightly and apparently dusted with a detective component.
However, last year Marinina decided to return to the roots and built her jubilee, fiftieth novel about Kamenskaya according to old patterns. The result was a solid book that will delight both fans of her old novels and a later audience, accustomed to lengthy thoughts about life. By the way, the story is based on real facts.
7. "Stranger"
Posted by: Stephen King
Just think, but once upon a time nobody wanted to publish King! Yes, we are not joking: the first book of a novice author was rejected at least 30 times. It is good that King turned out to be so steadfast in the face of the first failures and continues to regularly scare us for many years.
And although now the main source of butter on his bread is an adaptation, the king of horror and the prince of nightmares recently pleased readers with a new book. And, of course, she entered the top best-selling books in Russia in 2019.
This time, King expertly immerses us in the atmosphere of an American town, where everyone is familiar with each other, but everyone is not the one who seems at first glance. And a skeleton lurked in every closet. All the action is densely spiced with supernatural, and the resulting cocktail is breathtaking.
6. Brisbane
Author: Evgeny Vodolazkin
A poet in Russia is more than a poet. So the writer Vodolazkin, who wrote his first full-length book "Laurus" seven years ago, now sits in the State Duma and is included in the Presidential Council on Culture and Art.
However, Eugene did not rest on state laurels and continues to delight the Russian people with his creations. And readers answer him with love, and every year his books sell better and better. So, “Brisbane” was 10 thousand copies ahead of Vodolazkin’s bestseller two years ago called “Aviator”.
Brisbane is the story of a musician who, at the peak of his career, discovers that he is terminally ill and will never be able to speak to the public again. Filed against the backdrop of the last decades of Russian history, it touches not only emotionally, but is also interesting from a philosophical point of view. After all, each of us is faced with the questions that the main character has to solve.
5. “The art of light touch”
Posted by: Victor Pelevin
Judging by the sales, the Russians are gradually losing interest in Pelevin's work. From the crazy circulations of the turn of the millennium, he slowly but surely descended to more than 80 thousand copies (taking into account electronic and audio books).
But the master of phantasmagoria in the Buddhist style does not lose heart and regularly treats his fans with a fresh novel once a year. Novels come out right in the fall, when the evenings are especially dreary and you want to sit at home and read.
In “The Art of Light Touching” Pelevin remains true to himself, composing a vigorous mixture of modernity, densely kneading it on myths and seasoning with an alternative view of the world.
4. "Deadly whiteness"
Posted by: Robert Galbraith
You may not have known that the author of the Harry Potter novels is hiding under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. A few years ago, the famous writer decided to master a new genre - action-packed detective story. And, apparently, in order to clearly distinguish one side of her work from another, she changed her name.
Whatever it was, but the thrillers in Joan come out no worse than children's literature. In addition to a purely detective line (which is moderately cheerful, moderately touching and moderately frightening), the attentive reader will learn a lot about how the inhabitants of the United Kingdom live and breathe.
3. “Knife”
Posted by: Yu. Nesby
Our people love Scandinavian detectives. Either a similar geographical location influences, or a similarity of character, or a desire to open the most painful ulcers of society and dissect them with bitterness, anger and unexpected kindness.
But at least one Scandinavian thriller is present in the top 10 most popular books in Russia from year to year. It would be strange if one of the most skillfully made and exciting books from a Norwegian writer would not be among the sales leaders. And “Knife” breaks all records of company “nesbism”. In it, the Scandinavian noir is served even more noirly, and the life of Harry Hall is even harder. But for that we love him, right?
By the way, according to the ABC-Atticus Publishing House, the leader in sales is not the Silent Patient, but the Knife. But the heartbreaking love story “A meter from each other” - the sales leader according to “Exmo-AST” - did not even enter the top 10 from Forbes Life.
2. "White horses"
Posted by: Dina Rubina
In general, judging by the results of 2019, the Russian people prefer well-known names and winners of major literary prizes - this indicates the quality of the publication as a whole. Dina Rubina, a venerable Soviet-Russian-Israeli author, was no exception.
Even the first novel, which had not yet been completely written, was a success, and the second, the very same “Horses,” was liked by readers even more. And no wonder, given that this is a household romance about love against the backdrop of rapidly unfolding Russian reality. Well, who will not empathize with the troubled soul of a doctor with the usual name Aristarchus and his lover, the editor of Hope?
The dramas of love carried through decades are spiced up with a sharp one - an adventurous line straight from Napoleonic times, from the days of hussars, champagne, shakos and the crunch of fragrant French rolls.
1. “Silent patient”
Posted by Alex Michaelides
Alas, the Russian book market could not repeat the records of 2018. The mute patient loses a vigorous, full of drive and, to be honest, light crazy crazy novels by Dan Brown.
If the “Origin” from the tearing off the cover from the Templars and the Vatican was sold out like hot cakes in the winter (more than 300 thousand copies were sold), then “Patient”, the best-selling book in Russia in 2019 according to Forbes Lite, barely crawled over a hundred . And then with the addition of electronic and audio books.
However, two books are related by the genre - they are both action-packed thrillers. Judging by the rating, the stories of this direction are still the most popular among readers. So the Greek author dressed in an interesting and exciting form the ancient Greek myth.
A woman lives in a psychiatric clinic. She was once an artist, but now she not only does not draw, but also does not speak. She killed her husband and tried to die, but she was saved. Was this crime actually committed, and if it was, is it a crime in the strict sense of the word? These questions torment the psychiatrist who is trying to find out what happened to his patient many years ago.
