Followers of the monthly lists of the top ten most-served fiction books in regional and Yerevan public libraries by the National Library of Armenia will have noticed that in those lists Armenian authors and translated works compete on an equal footing. However, June is different. In the June top ten, we have nine Armenian authors and one foreign author.

In the top five of the list of most-ordered books are Ruben Yesayan’s 13 km from the Tunnel, Muratsan’s Gevorg Marzpetuni, Nar-Dos’s short story collection Our Neighborhood, Vahan Totovents’s novel Life on the Old Roman Road, and the stories of Aksel Bakunts. Also included in the top ten are Raffi, Derenik Demirchian, Gurgen Mahari, and Vakhtang Ananyan. The only foreign author in the list is Elif Shafak, with the book 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. That list was compiled from data provided by the National Library of Armenia; all 10 regional libraries; the Avetik Isahakyan Municipal Library of Yerevan and its branches; the Char­­l Aznavour Library of Ajapnyak; Shengavit Library No. 32; and the city and community libraries of Hrazdan, Vedi, Spitak, and Stepanavan.

It is no secret that in public libraries, fiction and educational literature are the most in demand. Our surveys show that books that have recently been published enjoy higher circulation — both because their content is new, and because they are much more attractive and colorful, and are printed in fonts that are more readable for the modern reader.