The names killed me – I tried, but just couldn’t work out who was who. I really liked the gypsy stuff early on, but after that it was too laborious – a real battle to finish the book.

I only read it cos its on the bbc big read – its the second marquez book I’ve not enjoyed.

Bizarrely, this book kept reminding me of Milan Kundera, who I was reading at the time by pure coincidence, and myself. Now, when I say it reminded me of myself, what I really mean is that as I was reading this book, it seemed to me that I knew what was going to happen next, even if I had no idea, because it seemed like something I could have been feverishly dreaming. The preoccupations with family, with the soul, with alchemy, with the unending cycles of human nature and of blood…

It’s like a hot, sticky room you think you can get out of, but everytime you open the door, you find yourself walking into the same place you just left. See if you can find out what the prophecy is for yourself. And see if the naming, the Aurelianos, the Arcadios, begins to make sense to you. It is a mad, wondrous strange, beautiful novel.

I first read this when I was 14, and I have tried ever since to read this again at least once a year…

This book was magical, a fairy tale. Compelling, dramatic, I was stuck like glue.

I have had this book in my possession FOREVER and have yet to read it. I think I may even have a copy in Spanish. I wanted to read more books by Spanish authors and thought this would be a good book to start with.