I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude at the insistence of a roommate who herself had read it while feverish in Ghana. She said she hallucinated the whole novel. Which is probably the proper way to experience it.

The book’s author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is dying of cancer and has retired from public life.

“If for an instant God were to forget that I am a rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn’t say all that I think, but rather I would think of all that I say. …

“I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream! …”

More can be found here.