The General in His Labyrinth explores the labyrinth of Bolívar's life through the narrative of his memories, in which "despair, sickness, and death inevitably win out over love, health, and life". Following the success of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera", García Márquez decided to write about the "Great Liberator" after reading an unfinished novel by his friend Álvaro Mutis. He borrowed the setting—Bolívar's voyage down the Magdalena River in 1830—from Mutis. García Márquez spent two years researching the subject, encompassing the extensive memoirs of Bolívar's Irish aide-de-camp, Daniel Florencio O'Leary, as well as numerous other historical documents and
The Love Machine (novel) into bite-sized nothingness," Nora Ephron, in the same newspaper, said "'The Love Machine' is a far better book than 'Valley'--better written, better plotted, better structured." As with "Valley", the reviews did not affect sales: "The Love Machine" spent 32 weeks on the "Times" best seller list, with 13 of those weeks at #1. The book became the third highest-selling novel of the year, behind just Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint" and Mario Puzo's "The Godfather". Columbia Pictures bought the film rights for $1.5 million, which was a record sum for the time. Released in August 1971, the film was executive-produced by