This week’s review is a modern classic written by a Nobel Prize winner. It has been made required reading in college classics, and other reviewers have cautioned readers not to attempt this book in one sitting. If you’re in the mood for a bit of a literary challenge, you may want to dive right into One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. First published in Spanish in 1967, this book has been translated into over two dozen languages. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the rise and fall of the mythical Columbian town of Macondo and the Buendia family. But don’t let the title fool you; this novel covers more than 100 years, and the fictional village is hardly isolated. It starts in the early 19th century and follows the generations from there. Rather than follow one or two main characters this story follows an entire family, many of whom share the same name. The names Aureliano, Ursula, and Remedio appear several times and even though there is a simple family tree in the front of the book, readers may want to take their own notes. Don’t let the foreign sounding names deter you, the themes in this book are universal and timeless. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been praised for combining both humor, mystery, and magical realism in this master work. And really, who can resist peeking further at a book that starts: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
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