I think the original is “bread and circuses”, but these days people have higher expectations! My understanding is that the “cake” element includes holidays and a netflix subscription.
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I thought Vonnegut’s “breakfast of champions” was the book to read. To be honest he gave me indigestion.
Catch 22 lies half read in a cupboard somewhere. Lord of the Rings - I managed up to the middle of book 2. Then watched the film trilogy.
I’ve not heard of the Diceman and the Tin Drum until today. I think it may be a girl/boy thing. Some books were very popular in the male domain. I ended up reading quite a few books like this because of Mr early love of my life shared them with me. Steppenwolf (Hesse) was one, Michael Moorcock books were part of that as was Vonnegut. We were always in the bookshop on a Saturday afternoon.
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And what about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? That was once the must read book alongside The Dice Man. Or Messiah by Gore Vidal.
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I never finished Catch 22 either, but once I discovered Vidal’s and James Michner’s books, I read them like candy.
I do remember that we were passing around a copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Exorcist because we knew our parents didn’t want us to read either. I should have listened to them 
.
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That reminded me of when I was at school and someone brought in a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that was passed around during a Maths lesson with all the ‘relevant’ pages turned down. I read it again later when studying for my degree and wondered what all the fuss was about!
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Someone lent me Lord of the Rings because they wanted to me to share their enthusiasm.I read the first page and that was that.I did keep it for a few days so they wouldn’t be disappointed.
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I read Lord of the Rings in a very fat paperback as I travelled overland from the UK to Australia. It wiled away the time on long bus journeys. I have never seen any of the films nor reread the book since.
My only complaint is that Frodo’s trip took something like 600 pages to get there and about 40 to return home.
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I did not read the Exorcist but the movie especially at that time was scary / disturbing .
Few days I watched The First Omen which not the same as The Omen and also pretty scary which is unusual for today .
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When the first one came out I expected a cheap piece of junk but it was great . All of them were
Think all filmed in New Zealand .
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Like most people, I prefer a hard copy to an e-book, especially when you want to flick back a few pages to refresh your memory or re-read something. But an e-book has its advantages, which are pretty obvious.
However, there are times when you download a book without really taking any notice of the size of it. You know you’re in trouble when it takes a few days of reading before the percentage of book read increases by 1. This has happened a few times, such as The Ragged Trouser’d Philanthopist, and Middlemarch.
I think one of the worse authors for “wasting” a load of middle pages is Stephen King.
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I tend to read “real” books but I have a Sony ebook, the latter is handy when travelling and nice to be able to easily adjust the size of the print.
That’s this year’s reading so far - not much variety!
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What on earth will you do if he dies?
Or, do you identify as Kathy Bates?
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