I purchased this book at Bookman's Used Books in Tucson, AZ. When I moved to NYC, it came with me. I'm currently reading it, and should be finished in a few days. I'd like to pass this book on to someone in a bookring once I finish.

Description from Amazon: "The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house.""

This was a really great book. I read it because it seems like a book everyone should read (several friends and Oprah telling me I should read it) so I finally got around to it. The book started out hard to read, and for me, that can be frustrating. Even though the book was harder to read (required more thought, longer time to go over the pages, understand the characters) I could tell that I was going to love it.

By halfway through, I wasn't having the same trouble reading it, and I could tell that it was going to pay off in the end.

The ending gave me a lot to think about. It really "wowed" me, and I had to ponder it for a while. I thought about the family in the book, the line of family. The women in the family. I thought about the things that happened, and the reality vs the story. There are a lot of very interesting and powerful themes throughout this book.

In short, I'm now one of those people that will recommend this book to everyone they know. I will make my children read it. It is really amazing, and I hope everyone else will enjoy it as much as I did.

Rules are simple, try to read and mail the book within a month or 2, if it is going to be longer than 2 months, please let me know what is going on. If you need to be skipped or need the shipping order changed for whatever reason, send me a PM so I can make alternate arrangements if possible. Post a journal entry when you receive it, finish reading it, and mail it, (you can combine the last 2 journal entries if you like) so we all know where it is. Media mail shipping is ok to save money.

People in the bookring so far:

(final shipping order)
Gelibeli (in CA)
hetku77 (in Finland)
cnfotp (in UK)
Bkworm9 (in DC) <-- Skipped
lyraness (in CA) <-- traveling to here
moraelyn (in CA)
WickedWordz (in FL)

I received the book yesterday in the mail. Will start reading immediately and will pass it along after I'm done. :D

I read this novel back in college - I don't think I appreciated it as much back then as I did now.

I finished it last night and am still in a very melancholy mood about it. It's a tale of the Buendia (Good Day) family, who co-founded the village of Macondo and ends with the last descendent of the line, forgotten and "dead" in the sense that nobody knew him or cared if he died or not.

I was moved by the historical "truths" of many Latin American countries woven into the novel -- the frenetic banana plantations (and pillaging of the countryside for foreigners' gain), the "desaparecidos" (the forgotten ones, murdered and made to "disappear") the history of "industrialism" invading a "backward" town. I was a Latin American history major in college and this novel made me yearn for my college years.

An excellent novel, one of the best I've ever read. I'm glad I was able to read it a second time.

I will be sending it along to Heidi (hetku77) soon. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. :)

RELEASE NOTES:

Book on its way to fellow bookcrosser, hetku77, in Finland!

10.4. I received the book today, thanks Gelibeli! I have a few bookrings before this plus a holiday trip and move coming up, so it might take a little while before I get into reading this. Sorry in advance!

3.7. I finished the book over the weekend... finally! It took over a month for me to get through it. For some reason I really couldn't get into the story, though I decided not to give up. I don't know why was it - was it because of the language (since I'm not a native English speaker) or was it because my own life was too hectic at the time that I couldn't give that attention to the book that it would have required and deserved. I suppose the latter is the most likely explanation - I had too many things in my mind and going on that I couldn't focus properly on the story. Which is a pity really, as I'm sure it would have given more to think about. Now it just seemed to annoy me that the story didn't impress me as much as I expected.

Arrived today - thank you for sharing :)

This will be my first book by Marquez and I'm looking forward to it. I bought Love in the Time of Cholerea recently but haven't read it yet.

I have another bookring which I'm reading at the moment so I should start this next week. I'll take it on holiday with me :)

Afer a slow start I really got into this book and the story of the Buendia's and the rise and fall of Macondo. At first I thought in a book this long I would really get to know the characters, but that doesn't really happen as they are all described in a pretty matter of fact way. This biographical style is mixed in with sudden flights of fancy which surprised and unsettled me.

I was glad I took the time to read the section at the end, where the author explains his style. I have realised since finishing the book I actually enjoyed it more than I realised and I am already getting the feeling that it is a story that will stay with me. I can see how this book has influenced many modern authors. Overall I think this is an amazing book which does deserve the hype.

I am PMing the next person on the list and the book should be travelling again by the end of this week. Thank you for sharing!

In the post to lyraness today as BkWorm9 asked to be skipped. ~~Safe travelling vibes~~

This book arrived just in time, as my book club just picked it as our next book. I'll read it ASAP and pass it along.