Martha Stewart Wants Everyone To Read This Book (& It's A Magical Realism Masterpiece)

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Martha Stewart might be more well-known as a pioneer of the domestic arts than a literary titan, but perhaps she shouldn't be. She's published more than 100 books throughout her career, and her personal website has information about everything from thrifting great books to keeping them clean. Clearly, Stewart is passionate about getting people to read, especially kids and especially the classics, as she revealed in a March 2026 interview with The Cut. "The kids aren't reading them now," she lamented, confirming her love for authors like Willa Cather and books like "Middlemarch." Her granddaughter, Stewart said, 'goes to one of the hardest, most fabulous schools in New York City, and she's not given those books to read.'

Her top recommendation for kids these days? "They should read 'One Hundred Years of Solitude,'" by Gabriel García Márquez, she urged. "It's one of the most legendary works of all time — they should read it." She also suggested "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, 'not only for the language, but just for the way in which it takes the time,' but emphasized that "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is her all-time favorite book. And she might be on to something. With "Pride and Prejudice" being one of the classic books getting fresh on-screen adaptations in 2026 and the Netflix adaptation of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" coming to a close in August 2026, younger readers may have renewed interest in these classics.

Stewart is right about one thing: Márquez's 1967 book deserves a place on everyone's TBR. For one thing, it opens with one of the most iconic first lines in literary history: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." You'd have to really fight not to be pulled in by that one. What follows is the story of Macondo, a fictional Colombian city based on Márquez's hometown of Aracataca, told over seven generations of the Buendía family. It's sprawling, and most editions include a family tree to help you keep track, which makes it an especially good modern classic to pick for your next book club read.

This is no ordinary family history, however. Macondo is a town that suffers at the hands of great political violence, but is also a place where common metals turn into gold, children are born with pig's tails, and priests can levitate. It's often claimed that Márquez invented magical realism, and while that's a vastly contentious argument, he definitely kicked off the Latin American Boom that opened the door to global audiences for authors previously denied them. Márquez himself saw little magic in his work; in "The Fragrance of Guava," he said, "Everyday life in Latin America proves that reality is full of the most extraordinary things."