The death of Gabriel Garcia Marquez has brought his classic "One Hundred Years of Solitude" to the top of best seller lists.

The novel known for its "magic realism" was No. 1 on Amazon.com on Friday, a day after Garcia Marquez died at age 87. The Nobel laureate's most famous book was No. 3 on BarnesandNoble.com. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide since coming out in the 1960s.

Trials, suffering, resurrection: the essence of Easter has a special ring to Greeks as the country hopes to pull through a painful six-year recession.

In churches around the country, religious symbolism takes on a very practical relevance for those still struggling from four years of austerity, ever since the country nearly went bankrupt in 2010.

Egypt has foiled an attempt to smuggle out of the country Jewish antiquities used during religious ceremonies, the antiquities ministry said on Friday.

The artefacts were discovered in the Mediterranean city of Damietta as they were about to be shipped to Belgium, a ministry statement said.

Thousands of Guatemalan Catholics broke their own Guinness record for the world's longest sawdust carpet Thursday with a multi-colored masterpiece stretching down the main avenue of the capital's historic center.

Completed in anticipation of Easter, it was more than 2,000 meters long (6,600 feet) and constructed of dyed sawdust and flowers.

Haruki Murakami's first collection of short stories in nine years hit the shelves in Japan on Friday with some excited fans queuing for the midnight launch.

Around 70 fans took part in a countdown ceremony at Kinokuniya bookstore in Tokyo's entertainment and shopping district of Shinjuku, where firecrackers were set off as the clock ticked to the witching hour.

Thousands of people flocked to rural fields in the Philippines on Friday to witness the gruesome spectacle of men being crucified in their annual Easter re-enactment of the death of Jesus Christ.

The ritual, held every year to mark Good Friday in Asia's bastion of Catholicism, has been going on for decades, becoming a major tourist draw despite official disapproval from Church leaders.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel-winning Colombian author who used magical realism to tell epic stories of love, family and dictatorship in Latin America, died Thursday at the age of 87.

Known affectionately as "Gabo," the author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" became one of the most popular Latin American novelists in the world and the godfather of a literary movement that witnessed a continent in turmoil.

A religious school for women in the Pakistani capital Islamabad has renamed its library in honor of slain al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The seminary is run by controversial hardline cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, the imam of the city's Red Mosque, once notorious as a hideout for hardliners with alleged militant links.

To mark the 70th birthday of one of Africa's most accomplished living artists, a Lagos museum chose to focus on pretty much anything but El Anatsui's globally renowned work. 

Instead, three decades of payslips from the University of Nigeria, where Anatsui has taught since 1975, are collected in a binder that hangs by a string in the center of the room.

Call her the miracle lady on the hill -- one with a brain aneurysm whose healing was declared a miracle, clearing the way for the late John Paul II to become a saint.

Floribeth Mora, a 50-year-old Costa Rican, has now become a sort of religious icon herself.