The end of the year and the beginning of a new one is the best time to take stock. This is done by both ordinary office workers and politicians, businessmen, housewives and schoolchildren. Book publishers did not stand aside either. What exactly do Russians read, and what books did they like the most in the past 2019? The rating of the best-selling books in Russia according to the Forbes Lite magazine will tell about it.
10. "As long as the river flows"
By Diana Setterfield
The first novel of this British writer, "The Thirteenth Tale", thundered all over 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 was almost Victorian-Gothic: on the longest night of the year, a stranger burst into the village tavern with a dead girl in his arms. The girl suddenly came to life (of course, otherwise there would be no point in writing a book) and the trademark Setterfield polyphony began. Many people tell different stories, but at the end all these streams merge into one powerful and full-flowing river.
9. "The house in which the light is burning"
Author: Elchin Safarli
Warm and lamp reading, which is especially tempting to plunge into on long winter evenings. Safarli's creation continues a long series of "nothing" books, which reached its peak in Coelho's work.
An elderly woman lives by the sea, makes jam, seals it in transparent small jars and writes letters to her granddaughter. These letters are full of sayings, which are full of pages in social networks. “Wisdom and experience grow out of doubt”; "Where there is no love, everything is wrong."
In total, over the past year, judging by the sales, about 44 thousand people have touched this wisdom.
8. "Another truth"
Author: Alexandra Marinina
It seemed that the queen of an action-packed detective story about Kamenskaya, a woman who was a computer, had long and hopelessly switched over to long family sagas, only slightly and for the sake of appearance powdered with a detective component.
However, last year, Marinina decided to return to her roots and built her fiftieth novel about Kamenskaya according to old patterns. The result is a solid book that will delight both fans of her old novels and a later audience, accustomed to lengthy reflections on life. By the way, the story is based on real facts.
7. "Stranger"
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's good that King proved to be so resilient in the face of the first setbacks and continues to scare us regularly for many years.
And although now the main source of butter on his bread is the film adaptation, the king of horror and the prince of nightmares recently delighted readers with a new book. And, of course, she entered the top best-selling books in Russia in 2019.
This time, King masterfully immerses us in the atmosphere of an American town, where everyone knows each other, but everyone is not who they seem at first glance. And in every closet there is a skeleton. The whole action is thickly flavored with supernatural, and the resulting cocktail is breathtaking.
6. "Brisbane"
Author: Evgeny Vodolazkin
A poet in Russia is more than a poet. Likewise, the writer Vodolazkin, who wrote his first full-length fiction book Lavr seven years ago, now sits in the State Duma and is included in the Presidential Council for Culture and Arts.
However, Yevgeny did not rest on state laurels and continues to delight the Russian people with his creations. And readers love him, and every year his books are selling better. So “Brisbane” was ahead of Vodolazkin’s bestseller two years ago called “Aviator” by 10 thousand copies.
"Brisbane" is the story of a musician who, at the height of his career, discovers that he is terminally ill and will never be able to perform in public again. Filed against the background 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 faces the issues that the protagonist has to solve.
5. "The art of light touching"
Author: Victor Pelevin
Judging by the sales, Russians are gradually losing interest in Pelevin's work. From the crazy circulation of the turn of the millennium, he slowly but surely went down to more than 80 thousand copies (including electronic and audio books).
But the master of phantasmagorias 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 Touches, Pelevin remains true to himself, making a vigorous mixture of modernity, mixing it thickly with myths and seasoning with an alternative view of the world.
4. "Deadly White"
By Robert Galbraith
You may not have known that the author of the Harry Potter novels is hiding under the pseudonym "Robert Galbraith". Several years ago, the famous writer decided to master a new genre - an action-packed detective story. And, apparently, in order to clearly distinguish one facet of her work from another, she changed her name.
Whatever it was, but Joan's thrillers 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"
Author: J. Nesbo
Our people love Scandinavian detectives. Whether it is influenced by a similar geographical location, or similarity of character, or the desire to open the most sick 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 masterfully made and exciting books from a Norwegian writer did not land among the top sellers. And the "Knife" breaks all the records of the firm "nessism". In it, Scandinavian noir is served even more noir, and life for Harry Hole is even harder. But that's why we love him, right?
By the way, according to the Azbuka-Atticus publishing house, the leader in sales is not Silent Patient, but Knife. But the heartbreaking love story “One meter apart” - the sales leader according to “Eksmo-AST” - did not even enter the top 10 from Forbes Life.
2. "White horses"
Author: Dina Rubina
In general, judging by the results of 2019, the Russian people prefer well-known names and winners of major literary awards - this speaks of the quality of the publication as a whole. Dina Rubina, a venerable Soviet-Russian-Israeli author, was no exception.
Already the first novel, not yet fully written, enjoyed success, and the second - those "Horses" - loved the readers even more. And it is not surprising, considering that this is an everyday novel about love against the background of the rapidly unfolding Russian reality. Well, who will not empathize with the restless soul of a doctor with the usual name Aristarchus and his beloved, the editor of Hope?
The dramas of love, carried through decades, are also spiced with spicy - an adventurous line straight from Napoleonic times, the times of hussars, champagne, shakos and the crunch of a fragrant French roll.
1. "Silent patient"
Author: Alex Michaelides
Alas, the Russian book market could not repeat the records of 2018. The dumb patient plays with vigorous, full of drive and, to be honest, a light madness to the novels of Dan Brown.
If "Origin" from the ripper of the veil from the Templars and the Vatican was sold out like hot cakes in winter (more than 300 thousand copies were sold in total), 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, the two books have a common genre - they are both action-packed thrillers. According to the ratings, the stories of this trend are still the most popular among the readers. So the Greek author put the ancient Greek myth into an interesting and exciting form.
A woman lives in a psychiatric clinic. She was once an artist, but now not only does she not draw, but also does not speak. She killed her husband and tried to die, but she was rescued. Was this crime actually committed, and if it did, was it a crime in the strict sense of the word? These questions plague a psychiatrist who is trying to figure out what happened to his patient many years ago.