The August map of fiction reading in public and community libraries in Armenia includes 130 books by Armenian and foreign writers. Overall, the reading subjects and reader preferences from earlier months were preserved. Despite the holidays and school break, students kept reading the books that were required by the curriculum. Several Armenian classical writers' works are highly sought after in libraries, including Raffi's "Samvel," Muratsan's "Gevorg Marzpetuni," Vahan Totovents' "Life on the Old Roman Road," Gurgen Mahari's "Childhood and Youth," Aksel Bakunts' "Alpine Violet," Nar-Dos' "Our Neighborhood" and "The Killed Dove," and many more.

Nevertheless, the titles of books read for the purported "pleasure" dominate the lists, indicating that the holiday spirit permeates the selection of books. The top ten libraries have more authors and books than in previous months. Novels by Ruben Yesayan, Gohar Navasardyan, Ashot Aghababyan, Grigor Keshishyan, and Rafael Margaryan are highly sought-after among modern Armenian writers. Agatha Christie has seven books, Remarque has five, and Khaled Hosseini, Mark Levin, and Elif Shafak each have three.

The most-read book in libraries in August was the thriller "The Silent Patient" by Greek-born British writer Alex Michaelides, and the novel "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini. Due to the holidays, many children from migrant families, mainly from Russia, return to Armenia. It is mainly thanks to them that many well-served Russian books also appear on the library lists.

Over your summer break, what book did you read?