How to start: One Hundred Years of Solitude won its author a Nobel Prize. In order to appreciate the book, halfway through the story, I googled a teenage-like complaint, “what is so great about one hundred years of solitude” and came across an excellent summary that pulled me through to the end.

Favourite quote: “Gaston was not only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of the species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.” (p 381)

Tangential: On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication, Vanity Fair featured an article on the subject.