Penguin's commemorative hardback reissue of One Hundred Years of Solitude by late Nobel laureate and author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a timeless classic and the perfect Christmas gift for any booklover. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been one of the undisputed literary giants of the past century; his stories are vivid, energetic, tender and unforgettable; they have touched the lives of readers across the globe and earned him countless awards including the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the wake of the author's death, his most beloved novel is reissued in commemorative hardback edition. One Hundred Years of Solitude is endlessly fascinating, an intricately patterned work of fiction and a joyful, irrepressible celebration of humanity. Vibrantly colourful and teeming with life, this timeless tale blends the natural with the supernatural in one of the most magical reading experiences on earth.

'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.' Pipes and kettledrums herald the arrival of gypsies on their annual visit to Macondo, the newly founded village where Jose Arcadio Buendia and his strong-willed wife, Ursula, have started their new life. As the mysterious Melquiades excites Aureliano Buendia's father with new inventions and tales of adventure, neither can know the significance of the indecipherable manuscript that the old gypsy passes into their hands. Through plagues of insomnia, civil war, hauntings and vendettas, the many tribulations of the Buendia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember its existence and only one will discover the hidden message that it holds...This new edition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most celebrated novel is published to coincide with celebrations to mark the 80th birthday of this Nobel Prize winning author in 2007.

In the book which put South America on the literary map, Marquez tells the haunting story of a community lost in the depths of that almighty continent where time passes slowly. A poetic masterpiece whose rich and powerful language easily survives the translation from Spanish, this is the most celebrated text of magic realism, the literary movement which has dominated world fiction for the last thirty years.

'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' Gabriel Garcia Marquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendia family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.

Pipes and kettledrums herald the arrival of gypsies on their annual visit to Macondo, the newly founded village where Jose Arcadio Buendia and his strong-willed wife, Ursula, have started their new life. As the mysterious Melquiades excites Aureliano Buendia and his father with new inventions and tales of adventure, neither can know the significance of the indecipherable manuscript that the old gypsy passes into their hands. Through plagues of insomnia, civil war, hauntings and vendettas, the many tribulations of the Buendia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember its existence and only one will discover the hidden message that it holds.

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death and the tragic comedy of man. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendia family one sees all mankind, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility-the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth-these, the universal themes, dominate the novel.

Collected Stories brings together many of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's spellbinding short stories, each brimming with a blend of the surreal, the magical, and the everyday that Nobel-Prize-winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude Marquez is known for. Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel Garcia Marquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities in his mesmerizing tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo's revered matriarch; a every old angel with enormous wings, stranded in a young couple's back garden; a town plagued by dying birds that fall from the sky and an awestruck village captivated by a beautiful drowned sailor. Teeming with the magical oddities for which his novels are loved, Marquez's stories are a delight.

In Evil Hour is the thrilling story of a Colombian society menaced by rumour and paranoia by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. As a small South American town sweats under an oppressive heat, an unknown person creeps through the night sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. When the contents of one poster lead to a murder, everyone knows that the town is threatened by a malevolent presence - but is there anything that the mayor, the doctor or the priest can do about it?

In Living to Tell the Tale Gabriel Garcia Marquez - winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude - recounts his personal experience of returning to the house in which he grew up and the memories that this visit conjured. 'My mother asked me to go with her to sell the house' Gabriel Garcia Marquez was twenty-three, a young man experimenting with his writing when this mother asked him to come back with her to the village of his grandparents and the memories of his Colombian childhood. In the first part of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's memoir, the Nobel Prize-winning author returns to the atmosphere and influences that shaped his formidable imagination and formed the basis of his world-famous, and much-loved, fiction.

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 Gabriel Garcia Marquezs great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendia family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.

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 Gabriel Garcia Marquezs great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendia family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a compelling, moving story exploring injustice and mob hysteria by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. 'On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on' Santiago Nasar is brutally murdered in a small town by two brothers. All the townspeople knew it was going to happen - including the victim. But nobody did anything to prevent the killing. Twenty seven years later, a man arrives in town to try and piece together the truth from the contradictory testimonies of the townsfolk. To at last understand what happened to Santiago, and why. . .

Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez,, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, portrays a food company violating a small Colombia town in his vivid and powerful novel Leaf Storm. 'Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had set down roots in the centre of the town, the banana company arrived, pursed by the leaf storm' Drenched by rain, the town has been decaying ever since the banana company left. Its people are sullen and bitter, so when the doctor - a foreigner who ended up the most hated man in town - dies, there is no one to mourn him. But also living in the town is the Colonel, who is bound to honour a promise made many years ago. The Colonel and his family must bury the doctor, despite the inclination of their fellow inhabitants that his corpse be forgotten and left to rot.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a powerful novel about a man who so far has never felt love from Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude. 'The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin' On the eve of his ninetieth birthday a newspaper columnist in Colombia decides to give himself 'a night of mad love with a virgin adolescent'. But on seeing this beautiful girl he falls deeply under her spell. His love for his 'Delgadina' causes him to recall all the women he has paid to perform acts of love. And so the columnist realises he must chronicle the life of his heart, to offer it freely to the world. . .

Nobel prize winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells a tale of an unrequited love that outlasts all rivals in his masterpiece Love in the Time of Cholera, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza's impassioned advances and married Dr Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half-century, Flornetino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but Fermina. Having sworn his eternal love to her, he lives for the day when he can court her again. When Fermina's husband is killed trying to retrieve his pet parrot from a mango tree, Florentino seizes his chance to declare his enduring love. But can young love find new life in the twilight of their lives?

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a compelling, moving story exploring injustice and mob hysteria by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. 'On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on' Santiago Nasar is brutally murdered in a small town by two brothers. All the townspeople knew it was going to happen - including the victim. But nobody did anything to prevent the killing. Twenty seven years later, a man arrives in town to try and piece together the truth from the contradictory testimonies of the townsfolk. To at last understand what happened to Santiago, and why...