Product Description

Since the day that Christopher Columbus first observed native Americans "with firebrands in their hands and herbs to smoke after their custom," tobacco has wound its way into every corner of modern life. This book tells the story of one of humankind's most persistent and peculiar habits.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #739714 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 345 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Faber Book of Smoking is a fascinating, intriguing and hilarious book of anecdotes on smoking. It splits into two parts--the first tells the basic story of smoking from Columbus's arrival in the New World to the tobacco battles of today, while the second picks out recurring themes like "giving up", "smoking, sex and seduction" and "smokers v. non-smokers" and follows them through the centuries. The excellent editing job is down to Walton's success in sparing us "anything that made my eyes glaze over when I was researching". He has succeeded royally in his aim of "providing a good read, some laughs, and some firm nods of recognition from smokers and non-smokers alike". The carcinogenic compendium is full of curious facts--did you know that smoking was linked to low birth-weight in the early 1600s?--and vulgar anecdotes from the famous dead. Check out the following from Flaubert: "When I was young ... whenever I went to a brothel with my friends I always picked the ugliest girl and insisted on making love to her in front of them without taking my cigar out of my mouth. It wasn't any fun for me: I just did it for the gallery". Have fun playing guessing games with your friends. Who said this? "He was chewing on a cigar. And then he had the cigar in his hand and he was looking at the cigar in ... sort of a naughty way. And so .... I looked at the cigar and I looked at him and I said, we can do that, too". A guilty pleasure or gift, The Faber Book of Smoking is endlessly entertaining and a fine balance between serious and seriously interesting stories, attitudes and anecdotes and vulgar, trashy, throwaway titbits. This is a must-read for smokers, a rare opportunity to celebrate the dirty weed we love. Take away this from the chapter entitled "The true smoker; or, the hopeless addict":

Tobacco is a dirty weed: I like it. It satisfies no normal need; I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean, It takes the hair right off your bean; It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen: I like it.

Review
Smoking has been with us from the days when tobacco was first smoked by native Americans through the heavy smoking eras of the 28th and 19th centuries, up to the wary smokers of the present day. Outlining the social history of tobacco, this book also deals with snuff and chewing tobacco, still popular in the deep south of America. It is a fascinating history, even to a non-smoker, not perhaps a book to be read at one sitting, but to be dipped into to enjoy the historical, literary and humorous references. Tobacco has been praised as an aid to philosophical thought, a method of calming those of a nervous disposition and was considered as essential to the armed forces as guns and bullets. It has also been reviled as a major element in the spread of cancer. Although the selection appears to be fairly even-handed in its treatment of the subject, tobacco's benign influence, its ability to promote friendship between people who do not share the same language or culture and its sedative qualities, make the reader realize why it has lasted so long. It is certainly a book that you will want to return to again and again, in fact it is almost positively addictive. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

Factual, funny and fascinating
Whether you're pro or anti smoking, this book will entertain and amuse. The research must surely have taken years. Everything concerning smoking has been unearthed and, if you'll pardon the pun, very cleverly filtered. The tributes in verse sit easily alongside terrifying tracts about disease and death. Both are equally interesting. Jokes and trivia take nothing away from the stark realities, which are these: people have smoked for 400 years because it feels good, and people have campaigned against it for just as long, because.... well, get the book if you want to find out what the author believes to be the why.

There are many very good things about The Faber Book of Smoking, but the editing must be singled out for special praise. The footnotes are hilarious and had me laughing out loud. My favourite? The text, quoting from a 1901 book on smoking, reports, "The President of the United States, Mr McKinley, smokes so hard that his physicians have limited him to two cigars a day". The footnote simply says, "McKinley was assassinated 1901".

Some of the facts will really surprise you. Step forward Germany's foremost anti-smoking campaigner and cancer research patron - yes, Herr ADOLPH HITLER! Castro eat your heart out. Hitler attributed most of his "success" to having given up smoking. A rather compelling argument for compulsory smoking, I thought (and yes, at ETON, it used to be COMPULSORY).

I won't say more - it'll spoil the fun. Enjoy!