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The Smoking Book
The Smoking Book is a dreamlike structure built on the solid foundation of two how does it feel to smoke, and what does smoking mean? Lesley Stern, in an innovative, hybrid form of writing, muses on these questions through intersecting stories and essays that connect, expand, and contract like smoke rings floating through the air.
Stern writes of addictions and passionate attachments, of the body and bodily pleasure, of autobiography and cultural history. Smoking is Stern's seductive pretext, her way of entering unknown and mysterious regions. The Smoking Book begins with intimate and vivid accounts of growing up on a tobacco farm in colonial Rhodesia, reminiscences that permeate subsequent excursions into precolonial tobacco production and postcolonial life in Zimbabwe, as well as dramatic vignettes set in Australia, the United States, Scotland, Italy, Japan, and South America. Stern has written a book, at once intensely personal and kaleidoscopically international, that weaves the intimate act of a solitary person smoking a cigarette into a broad cultural picture of desire, exchange, fulfillment, and the acts that bind people together, either in lasting ways or through ephemeral encounters.
The Smoking Book is for anyone who has ever smoked or loved a smoker (against their better judgment); it is for those who have never smoked or for those who mourn the loss of cigarettes as they would grieve for a lost friend. But mostly, The Smoking Book is for all those who are smoldering still.
Stern writes of addictions and passionate attachments, of the body and bodily pleasure, of autobiography and cultural history. Smoking is Stern's seductive pretext, her way of entering unknown and mysterious regions. The Smoking Book begins with intimate and vivid accounts of growing up on a tobacco farm in colonial Rhodesia, reminiscences that permeate subsequent excursions into precolonial tobacco production and postcolonial life in Zimbabwe, as well as dramatic vignettes set in Australia, the United States, Scotland, Italy, Japan, and South America. Stern has written a book, at once intensely personal and kaleidoscopically international, that weaves the intimate act of a solitary person smoking a cigarette into a broad cultural picture of desire, exchange, fulfillment, and the acts that bind people together, either in lasting ways or through ephemeral encounters.
The Smoking Book is for anyone who has ever smoked or loved a smoker (against their better judgment); it is for those who have never smoked or for those who mourn the loss of cigarettes as they would grieve for a lost friend. But mostly, The Smoking Book is for all those who are smoldering still.
- GenresEbooksNonfiction
248 pages, Hardcover
First published October 28, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 4, 2021
Still getting the hang of this app - I never realised that this was the main function of ‘Goodreads’ but here we are, having great, agonising fun trawling through the depths of memory for the books I’ve read (and distinguishing between what one has actually read and what one has been claiming to have read for years). I fully intend to work through the bursting shelves of unread books this year rather than constantly throwing my pennies at more. This includes finally reading the books I’ve promised my mother I would read since childhood, and removing the shame of never having actually read any Austen (I know, I know) and finishing the many books I started but never finished (to my shame I have read all the peace bits and none of the war in Tolstoy’s masterpiece). So I’m being honest with myself, and hoping to use this app as an incentive to keep going.
This collection is rather good by the way.
This collection is rather good by the way.
July 8, 2022
Lesley Stern is a master of her craft. I had an amazing and memorable experience with her book and would recommend it to any person who appreciates language, history, and culture. This book allows the reader to understand why people smoke and learn the history and truth behind it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews