Are you interested in what people around the world are reading? Travel the bestseller lists with us! This month we checked out bestsellers in Colombia, Egypt, Greece, Ireland, and Malaysia. Here's what we found.

Colombia

British writer Fiona Barton’s acclaimed thriller The Widow / La viuda was at the top of Planeta de Libros Colombia’s bestseller list when we checked on Monday, March 27. This title is currently available from the Library in English and Spanish. Primero estaba el mar / In the Beginning Was the Sea, the debut novel by Colombian writer Tomás González, originally published in 1983 and reissued in 2015, is also high on the list. An English translation by Frank Wynne was published in 2014. 

Other titles on the list include a historical novel, A flor de piel [Skin Deep], by Spanish author Javier Moro, which tells the story of the Balmis Expedition, a mission to vaccinate millions against smallpox in the early 1800s, and Lo que no te mata te hace mas fuerte / The Girl in the Spider’s Web, David Lagercrantz’s continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, which is available from the Library in English, Spanish, Polish, and Hebrew. The children’s classic, The Little Prince / El principito by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is also near the top of the fiction list. The Little Prince is available to borrow from the Library in the original French (Le petit prince), in English, Spanish, Japanese, and Russian.

 

Egypt

We checked the bestseller lists on two bookseller sites in Egypt this week, Alef Bookstores and Diwan. Both list bestselling books in Arabic and in English. The Spy / Paulo Coelho’s novel about the legendary World War I spy Mata Hari is a bestseller at both. The novel is currently available from the Library in the original Portuguese, in English, Spanish, Korean, and Russian. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs are bestsellers on the Alef site. The English translation of the Turkish novel The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak is also listed as a bestseller on the Diwan site. Some of Shafak’s books are available from the Library in Russian, Polish, Chinese, and English.

Arabic fiction titles that appear on both bestseller lists include a historical thriller, Tadhkirat Wahidat Lilqahira [One Way Ticket to Cairo] by the Egyptian author and judge, Ashraf El-Ashmawi and ‘An Tabqaa [To Stay] by Tunisian writer Khawla Hamdi. One of El-Ashmawi’s previous novels, Toya, was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2013. Another novel by Hamdi, Fi Galbi Ontha Ibreya [In my Heart is a Jewish Girl] is also on the Alef bestseller list. A short excerpt has been translated on this blog and it is mentioned on this list of 8 Tunisian Books to Read Before You Die. This might be difficult, however, as neither of these bestselling authors has been translated into English yet. The latest novel by the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction winner, Egyptian writer Youssef Zeidan is also on the Alef Books bestseller list. Noor is the conclusion of a trilogy that includes the novels Mahal and Guantanamo. Zeidan’s work is not yet available in translation.

 

Greece

We looked at several bookseller sites in Greece this week, which include a mixture of fiction and nonfiction titles on their bestseller lists. When we checked the bestseller list on the Books.gr site on Saturday, March 25, we found Paul Beatty’s award-winning satirical novel The Sellout / Ο ΠΟΥΛΗΜΕΝΟΣ in the top ten along with various nonfiction titles and several Greek authors whose work has not been translated into English. A cartoon collection by popular Greek cartoonist Arkas, Ο Φεβρουάριος και οι έντεκα μήνες [February and Eleven Months] and a novel about a rural postman by Greek author Giorgos Papadakis, Ο Ταχυδρόμος Μυθιστόρημα [Postino: A Novel] are also in the top ten.

When we looked at the bestsellers at Politeia and Evripidis, two of Athens’s largest bookstores, we found two fiction titles common to both lists, a coming of age novel, Pou, by Greek author Marialena Spyropoulou, along withThe Hour of the Star by acclaimed Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. The Hour of the Star /Hora da estrela, originally published in 1977 shortly after the author’s death, is considered by many to be her greatest novel. The first English translation was published in 1986 with a second translation by Benjamin Moser published in 2011. The Greek edition on the bestseller lists—I Ora Tou Asteriou—was published in 2016. Many of Lispector’s novels and collected stories are available to borrow from the Library in the original Portuguese, to borrow or download in English, and we also have a few titles in Spanish.

Many thanks to Tom Nikolaidis at Mid-Manhattan Library for help with researching these Greek bestsellers!

Ireland

Irish authors top the bestseller list for original fiction with a few international powerhouses also in the top ten. When we looked at the bestseller lists for the week ending March 18 on Writing.ie, Orange Blossom Days by Patricia Scanlan, not published yet in the U.S., was number one. NYPL has other novels by Scanlan to borrow or download, including A Time for Friends. Graham Norton’s debut novel Holding (U.S. pub date in August), Jane Casey’s seventh Maeve Kerrigan novel, Let the Dead Speak, and John Boyne’s latest novel, The Heart’s Invisible Furies (U.S. pub date in August), are also in the top ten. Boyne’s earlier books are available to borrow in English and some are available in Spanish.

Jojo Moyes, Sophie Kinsella, and Danielle Steel are also in the top ten with Paris for One and Other Stories, My Not So Perfect Life, and Dangerous Games, respectively. These new titles are not available in other languages yet, but many older titles from these bestselling authors are available at the Library.

Jojo Moyes in Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Polish, Italian, and English.

Sophie Kinsella in Spanish, Russian, Italian, Polish,

Danielle Steel in Russian, Spanish, Italian, Albanian, Polish, Hungarian, Hebrew, French.

 

Malaysia

MPH Online, a large online bookseller in Malaysia, lists both English language and Malay language bestsellers. For the week ending March 26, Sophie Kinsella’s latest, My Not So Perfect Life, is at the top of the English list, followed by Me Before You and After You by Jojo Moyes. Make Me Love You by bestselling romance author Johanna Lindsey, and The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey are also on the list.

Many of Johanna Lindsey’s romances are also available at the Library in Spanish and Russian.

The poetry collection Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, recently recommended on NYPL’s list of 14 New Poetry Picks for World Poetry Day, was number 4 on the English bestseller list.

The list of local bestsellers includes books in Malay, whose authors have not been translated into English. The top ten books on the list are all novels, of which four are described as mystery/thriller, four as romance, one as Islamic, and one as other. Several novels also appear to have fantasy and mystical elements. The number one title on the current list, Anding Ayangan, by the prolific Malaysian author Ramlee Awang Murshid, is a mixture of suspense and fantasy.

 

In May last year we checked the fiction bestseller lists in Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and Russia, and in July we looked at bestseller lists from France, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, and Sweden. September took us to China, Nigeria, Poland, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates and November to Canada, Dominican Republic, Israel, Portugal, and Turkey.  In January 2017 we collected bestsellers of the previous year from 10 countries around the world. Do you check the bestseller lists from any other countries? What have you discovered? Any favorite novels in translation or authors you wish were translated? Let us know in the comments section below.