When they make the three-part movie about the life of the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, it will be better than the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It will have a compelling yet flawed hero: a young man from a poor and fertile family who goes from being a high school balladeer to becoming one of the great legends of modern literature. There will be sex, murder, war and politics. It will be articulate and it will be one of the greatest stories ever told on film. Living to Tell the Tale (Knopf) is the first of three autobiographical books by García Márquez. It has come out in paperback, a year after the hardcover edition, and it is a big book that you want to have in your collection, if only for the storytelling. You can put it down and go back to it at any time. It is long and complicated. It is the story of a life.