Book Report: 'Wicked' and 'One Hundred years of Solitude'

I've heard that 'Wicked' by Gregory Maguire has been made into a Broadway musical in the past couple of years. A close friend, and fellow Broadway nut, sent me the novel to read so I wouldn't completely miss out. I'm happy she did, since its original - the flip side of 'The Wizard of Oz', highly entertaining, and surprisingly "adult". I suppose I assumed an alternate take on what was the children's story of a generation (several, in fact), would also be childlike. Who'd have thought that the Wicked Witch of the East would have a long-term live-in boyfriend who was a rebel leader against the totalitarian regime of the Wizard?

Will, my postmate, has been begging me to read, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for a long time now. It had been built up as the greatest novel by a Nobel prize-winning author. I wasn't so sure, since I really disliked 'Love in the Time of Cholera', an earlier novel of his. But, I read it, or should I say, trudged through it. I don't know if its me or what the problem is, but while I can see the "intellectual appeal" of the book (it provides commentary on topics ranging from family relationships to Catholicism and third-world development), as a form of entertainment, insight or even philosophy, it falls short on all counts in my mind. It took me several weeks to read, and I had trouble reading more than 20 pages in one sitting- my definition of a book better read by someone else.

In process: 'What should I do with my life?' by Po Bronson