Ten Stories about Smoking

by Stuart Evers

This title features ten stories of allure, betrayal, nostalgia, solitude, seduction, damage, desire and loss; of silence broken by the click of a lighter; insomnia defined by a glowing ember; a magician's trick; a lover's scent; and, a final wish. These are stories that go to the heart of things. 'In this remarkable collection, Stuart Evers winds a course through worlds of yearning, secrets and mortification in prose as lithe as a ribbon of smoke' - Wells Tower. 'Love, loss and recovery are the real themes of these quiet, haunting stories, which add up into an unexpectedly powerful book. An impressive debut' - Aravind Adiga. 'Evers has found possibility in even the bleakest and smallest of lives, with each delicately linked not only by a cigarette but also by a glimpse into how terrifyingly empty a life can be' - David Vann. 'With powerfully understated writing, Evers has an eye for the humor that lives alongside sadness, and above all for the humanity in the smallest of actions' - Evie Wyld.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Formerly a bookseller and editor, Stuart Evers is a writer and reviewer. His short stories have appeared in The Best British Short Stories 2012, Prospect and on The Times website. He has reviewed for a wide range of publications including the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph and New Statesman. He lives in London.

His first book was published in 2011, a collection of short stories entitled Ten Stories about Smoking. It was described by the Daily Telegraph as "original and quietly devastating", while New Statesman noted echoes of Raymond Carver and Alice Munro. The book won the 2011 London Book Award at the London Awards for Art and Performance.

Reviews

[JimZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read a short story in this collection from another collection (Best British Short Stories 2014) and liked it so much I ordered this book. Of the first 5, two were 3.5 which is pretty good in my book (so to speak), but the others were 2.5s. It went downhill from there. I wrote down a quote and it’s not the first time I am using it in one of my reviews from another GR reviewer because it rang true to me, and signals a book or story that I would not like: "It pulls me out of the narrative to hear the writer writing.” I was just picturing Stuart Evers writing this stuff while I was reading a number of these stories. I want to be in the land that the characters of the novel/story are - not thinking about the author and how bad some of the sentences are. I wrote down one sentence from a story because it was so stupid (IMHO), but it was one of many: “My mouth felt like the baize on a pool table.” What???!!!

The one thing I liked was the packaging of the book. It was in a slipcase that resembled a pack of cigarettes. And you opened up the slipcase on top by a flip lid, just like on a hard pack of cigarettes. That was way kewl! And the front cover of the softcover novel were pics of cigarettes.
So 5 stars for the packaging of this collection of stories. 🙂 🙃

I wonder how these stories will be rated when I read the reviews. Probably there will be good reviews because this was published by Picador. One can’t be a slouch to have one’s book published by a big name and well-respected publisher. (Yes, I just read the reviews and they were very good.)

Here are the titles of the stories and my ratings. In this case I was so turned off by the stories I don’t even have synopses for them. The one I liked, and that led me to buy this book was “What’s in Swindon”.
1. Some Great Project – 3.5 stars [man finds out his father had sired four brothers and two sisters…]
2. Things Seem So Far Away, Here – 2.5 stars [had the potential to be much better than it was, the characters were underdeveloped]
3. What’s in Swindon? – 3.5 stars
4. The Best Place in Town – 2.5 stars [Not a very good story. The author must know what he wants to convey…I don’t.]
5. Underground – 2 stars (A note I wrote to myself: These stories just aren’t doing much for me. At times when I am reading these stories, I am reading Stuart Evers compose sentences and paragraphs.)
6. Lou Lou In the Blue Bottle – 1 star
7. Eclipse – 1 star
8. Real Work – 1 star
9. Sometimes Nothing. Sometimes Everything – 2 stars
10. The Final Cigarette – 1 star

Reviews:
• http://www.theshortreview.com/reviews... (the reviewer, Catherine Smith, liked it)
• https://www.independent.ie/entertainm... (John Boland from the Independent loved it)
• Ten Stories About Smoking by Stuart Evers | Book review roundup | The Omnivore (synopses of 6 reviews! Overall star rating was 4.5 stars)

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

couldn't resist this - it is packaged like a packet of fags (cigarettes, US people) and when you take the book out it has filter tips etc. Take that, Kindle!





..Ok, a bit of a gimmick, but this bloke can write. All the stories feature smoking - the last one is about Raymond Carver's final cigarette. That's one of the weaker ones (I felt) but there are four or five very fine pieces here, I was taken with them. I started with the shortest 'What's in Swindon?' (that's already funny to English people as Swindon is known as a town of roundabouts and little else) and was struck by how clever he was to convey so much about an attempt to rekindle an old relationship in 4 or 5 pages. The next one I read was longer and better still - 'Things Seem So Far Away Here' - about a down-on-her-luck sister who visits her much richer brother hoping to find some work (nannying) with his family, and how she gradually realises she doesn't fit in: an excellent story. Others were just as good: 'Some Great Project' (again involving siblings) and 'The Best Place in Town' about a stag party in Las Vegas. Perhaps the most striking story is 'Real Life', about a female installation artist who makes art out of pornography mixed with news footage, hats on wires etc and hangs about with sado-masochists (in the club they visit a woman walked past with a man on a leash. He drank from a bowl of water on the floor... We watched Mary beat the hell out of some guy, then went back to the flat). Funny, smart stuff, on the ball but not slick because you see it all from the more 'ordinary' boyfriend's pov, while she's out exhibiting he's watching football (soccer) at the local pub, called 'The Faltering Fullback'. Two, maybe three of the stories didn't quite hit those heights, but overall I was impressed.

[Neil Schiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book this morning and have just finished it, spending all day reading (something I haven't done in about 10 years). What a great collection this is. Evers obviously understands the short story form extremely well and the result is a set of stories that sit in the same bracket as the likes of Raymond Carver, Richard Yates, Denis Johnson, Sam Shepard etc.

I have to admit, as a divorced thirty something with a lingering smoking habit and an interest in quality contemporary literature, I am probably the personification of Evers' reading demographic. I've written some short stories that explore the same themes as some of those included here, and I was able to identify closely with a lot of the narrative voices - one of the stories is so uncannily close to a situation I found myself in I had a moment of paranoia. But I think that shows the quality of this work: there's a credibility and realism to it that I'm sure a lot of other readers will really identify and connect with, just as I did.

Like all collections, inevitably, some of the stories are stronger than others. But the benchmark is set so highly here that at worst they are solid and engaging, and at best just stunning. My favourites were the opener 'Some Great Project' which just drew me in completely, 'What's in Swindon' which I thought was succinctly brilliant, and 'Eclipse' which was so taut and understated, and so visceral, it just blew me away.

Of course, this book isn't going to sell as many copies as the next Stephenie Meyer novel or the next biography of a 22 year old B list celebrity, which is a real shame (criminal really), but hopefully the clever packaging promised will help it stand out on the shelves. Because this collection really deserves to be read, by as many people as possible. Best book I've read so far this year - have unearthed a bit of a gem with this one...

[Marcus Gipps · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a huge short story fan, to be honest. Or, to be more honest, I’m not a huge fan of single-author collections of short stories. I know they tend not to do very well – it’s the perennial cry of the sales rep, “I know they’re difficult to sell, but this collection will be different” – but that isn’t my problem with them. My problem is, I think, that the stories blur into each other. No matter how good the author is, no matter how skilled they are at writing in different voices, my brain is tuned to lump things together. It doesn’t help that I tend to look for connections between the stories - even when I know they’re not there, I assume that there will be links or echoes throughout the collection that can be found if only I look hard enough, and so I unconsciously amalgamate everything together and therefore find it hard to distinguish them when I look back. Given all of that, I tend not to read a lot of collections (this is also why I like David Mitchell, for example – those stories are meant to be connected). However, this one comes with a fairly hefty buzz about it, and is about smoking (which I’m a big fan of), so I thought I’d take it on holiday with me.

Of course, the sensible way for me to read short story collections, given the caveats above, would be to parcel them out – read one or two, take a break, read something else and then go back to the collection. I’m not very good at doing that, though – I can just about keep a couple of books on the go at once, but normally only if one of them is significantly less complex than the other, and only if I’m spending a lot of time in two different places. That, largely, is why I tend to read comics and humour books at work, and more complex novels at home or travelling (please note, I know that a lot of the stuff I read isn’t that complex really, but you know what I mean). To get back to the point, with Ten Stories About Smoking, I did manage to break things up a little bit more, before falling back into the mistake of reading the last five stories all in one go. Perhaps that’s why I have pretty positive feelings towards the book, although it could, of course, also be because the book is good. Of course, that might suggest that I’ve had the wrong idea about short story collections for years. After all, I used to read lots of them as a kid/teenager (mostly SF, you won’t be too surprised to hear).

I’m going to stop wittering on about whether I like short story collections or not. Perhaps I should read a few more. Anyway, this one is rather good, I reckon, and I don’t normally rate them, as I may have mentioned, so that counts as a win as far as I’m concerned. The use of smoking (or cigarettes) works fairly well as a way to tie these relatively disparate tales together, although that isn’t to say that there’s a massive variation in tone. The overwhelming feeling is of loneliness or loss – nothing here is particularly cheery – and the texts are full of moments when things aren’t being said, where the reader has to fill in the gaps. Perhaps the fact that I tended to assume the worst is an indication of my state of mind, but I feel in quite a good mood, so I think it’s because of the emotional mood of the writing. A couple of the stories have really stayed with me – the single woman visiting her brother and his family, the visit to a boxing gym – and the prose is precise and often touching. There is a slight tendency for the smoking theme to feel a little shoe-horned in at times (the Vegas one seems like a perfectly good story without the fag element), but never to such an extent that the story feels cheapened. Although the last few blur into each other a little, as I said, the final story is clever and powerful, and not much writing manages to be both of those things at the same time.

It looks like Picador are going to publish this as a collection of pamphlets within a cigarette-box shaped container (although I may be reading too much into the blurb on the back of the proof), which sounds interesting and slightly risky, things always to be applauded in publishing. I’m sure it will get good reviews – if nothing else, these are hugely competent and well-put together stories. I hope it sounds like the compliment I intend it to be that I’d like to see the author extend his range a little next time, whether that’s in a novel or another collection of stories. Regardless, keeping an eye on Evers seems like a good idea, and when it’s finally published, Ten Stories About Smoking will be well worth tracking down.

I read a proof on the train to, and then on holiday in, Wales, from the 16th of August to the 22nd. The box set is out in March 2011, ISBN: 9780330525152.

[Tim Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the back cover it says that Alice Munro echoes throughout (I couldn't see it) and that the stories contain "Writing sequined with sparkling descriptions" and are "Brilliantly restrained". They "find dignity in quiet lives and beauty in dark corners". The main character is usually much the most thoughtful and literate one in each story. There are many break-ups and house-movings. There's excellent use of smoking.

In "Some Great Project" a newly orphaned man finds comfort in organising family photos. He discovers that he has a stepbrother. His unfriendly stepbrother says there are several more. The persona's happy that he now has several family trees to research. He realises now why his father didn't want him to research family trees. The story has some phrases that for various reasons puzzled me, partly because of their diction - "work, which had long nourished me" (p.4); "I wondered what my brother was doing at that moment in time" (p.11), "listening to the admonishments of parents" (p.16) - and partly because I had trouble understanding the analogy, or the point of the phrasing - "it felt oddly formal, like we were two old ladies discussing the local gossip" (p.8); "It was about a man with a serial killer as a brother; a joke just for my benefit" (p.11). Also would a waitress really give free extra portions as on p.13?

In "Things seem so far away, here", Linda visits her well-to-do brother and young family. Each adult has a turn or 2 at having the PoV, during which we find out what they hope to get from the encounter. Linda, who's had some problems in the past, comes to believe that her future depends on whether the little girl will like the gift Linda's knitted her. When she readies to give it, Linda realises that it stinks so much of her bedsit's smoke that she mustn't let the girl see it. But the girl's knocking on Linda's room expectantly.

I wasn't so keen on "What's in Swindon?". Also I couldn't gauge "I made sure that she came first; I could have done it with my eyes closed" (p.61).

"The best place in town" is my favourite story - vivid characters and a sense of displacement, of something wrong with reality. Not sure about the ending though.

"Underground" is plain. "Lou Lou in the Blue Bottle" is a framed monologue that didn't interest me. The writing's mostly ok - e.g. "It was a twenty-minute walk through shit-smeared sidewalks and gutters bearded with spent crack vials" (p.120) - though on p.128-9 there's a succession of sentences whose verb/preposition pattern is repetitive - "it was a", "There were ... on", "There was ... on", "On the ... was", "there was ... .on", "On the ... were". Maybe it's intentional.

"Eclipse" (more episodic than the others) ends well


'I love you too,' he says, but too quickly. I put my cheek next to his and breathe in through my nose as much as I can. There is nothing, not even a breath. And then, for a moment, I think I can smell cinnamon and plums, and her, and then cigarettes, and then beer, and then just the smell of the outside world (p.156).

In "Real Work" the male narrator's female partner turns a job down to become an artist. He doesn't like her new circle of friends. It's in the first person, addressed to a "you", so it sounds strange at times - "You never liked staying at my house" (p.166), "This is what you said:" (p.188). After initial doubts I liked that story too.

In "Sometimes Nothing, Sometimes Everything" a man who's recently split from his girlfriend leaves his old place

The flat looked distressed and naked without Andrea's things; like a clown without make-up. I walked down the hallway where there should have been a Portuguese Vertigo poster and a signed photograph of Sophia Loren. In the lounge where the large mirror she'd bought at a car boot fair used to hang, there was simply a white space with a nicotine-tinged halo (p.197)

He isolates himself then emerging to visit Asda he seems full of love for the human race. But he takes too long to ask someone out (a street-trader, selling foreign cigarettes), rationing dialogues to one a week. There's a good final page. Actually the whole story's pretty good.

"The final cigarette" is fine - the only story where cigarettes dominate.

So it looks at if I like at least half of the stories - for me, a strikingly high proportion.

[Anne-Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book club read. I dreaded reading it, I read it. It's done. One story was particularly distressing so I skimmed it: Real Work. Otherwise, felt like I'd been dipped in a well used ashtray.

[David Hebblethwaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

The saying goes that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it would seem wrong not to mention the design of Ten Stories About Smoking, which comes in a flip-top box that looks like a cigarette packet, with the cover of the volume itself as the ‘cigarettes’. It’s a brilliant piece of work that really enhances the reading experience, and I take my hat off to the designers, Two Associates.

Of course, as good as the design may be, what counts the most is the quality of the stories; I’m pleased to say that Stuart Evers has written a fine selection here. First, the title of the collection: all the stories feature smoking in some way, but often in the background, so the tales aren’t necessarily ‘about smoking’ in a literal sense —- but Evers often gives smoking a metaphorical purpose in his stories, and they can be ‘about’ what smoking represents within them.

‘Things Seem So Far Away, Here’ is a good example of what I mean. Having received news from the doctor that effectively derails her life, Linda goes to visit her younger, more successful, brother Daniel, in the hope that she’ll be hired to look after her niece, Poppy. Evers doesn’t need to use description to evoke the difference between Daniel’s comfortable middle-class family life and Linda’s bedsit existence, because it’s there in the details that Linda observes, and the way that she knows how Daniel’s lifestyle works (on observing family photographs in the main room, Linda is aware that ‘should anything happen to her brother’s family, these were the photos that would be given to the television and the newspapers,’ p. 32). When Linda makes the comment that gives the story its title, she may be referring to the isolated rural location of Daniel’s house, but we also feel the distance between the siblings’ lives, because so little detail of Linda’s home life is given in comparison to that of Daniel’s family. Linda’s smoking habit comes to represent that distance, and the image of a smoke-tainted jumper symbolises how far it will remain.

Evers’ characters frequently find their plans and ambitions thwarted. Moore, the protagonist of ‘Some Great Project’ is looking for something to occupy his mind after the deaths of his parents, but nothing quite works until he starts cataloguing old family photos—which leads him to discover that he has a brother about whom he never knew. Moore travels to Spain in search of his brother, but it doesn’t work out how he imagined. In this story, smoking is a symbol of the lives that never were, as Moore’s brother lights the cigarettes of his fallen Falklands comrades; but the theme of lost opportunities is carried all the way through, from the opening scene of the teenage Moore being denied the chance to read his grandfather’s collection of adventure novels, to the ironic closing twist. ‘Some Great Project’ is a very elegantly constructed piece.

Sometimes in Ten Stories About Smoking, there’s a striking sense that the ‘real story’, as it were’ is going on elsewhere, yet the tales are no less satisfying for that. ‘Real Work’ depicts the gradual unravelling of the relationship between Ben and his artist girlfriend Cara; the two come from different worlds, and Ben gradually becomes disillusioned as he realises that he and Cara simply want different things from life. But it’s the subtle way Evers depicts the process of this which makes the story work so well; by the end, when Cara is exhibiting her new film, little may have changed on the surface, yet we know how much really has. Even more striking is ‘The Best Place in Town’, in which David Falmer, on a stag-party trip to Las Vegas, takes a walk through the city that acts as a kinetic way for him to come to terms with his discontents (also symbolised by the way Falmer begins the story smoking for the first time in thirteen years, and ends it admiring a magician doing tricks with cigarettes) -— but the very last scene reveals that John, the bridegroom-to-be, has problems of his own, which have not been (and will not be) explored; and this creates an interesting effect when set against the completeness of Falmer’s story.

Perhaps the tale which is most directly concerned with smoking is the book’s closing piece, aptly titled ‘The Final Cigarette’. This concerns a dying man named Ray Peters, who is having what will probably be his last smoke. Two versions of this alternate: in one, Ray is American, and on his hotel balcony in Reno, two days after marrying a younger woman; in the other strand, Ray is British, waiting for the end in hospital, and being visited by his son, though his wife refuses to see him. The contrast between these two versions of reality is well-drawn and powerful, with the American strand (which I took to be imaginary) a vision of happiness and strength (given Ray’s situation, that is), with even the cigarette-smoking looking and feeling good. In the British reality (the ‘real’ reality, perhaps), however, Ray is slowly wasting away, his smoking comes across as a desperate comfort for a dying man, and his relations with those around him are not always cordial. ‘The Final Cigarette’ is a vivid portrait of the realities of life not living up to one’s dreams. That sums up what strikes me as the main theme of Stuart Evers' collection -- a book of ten fine stories which are about plenty more than just smoking.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must declare an interest here - the only reason I picked up this book in the first place is because the author is a friend of my cousin. It was particularly nice to read the acknowledgements at the back and see my cousin's name (plus my former boss, but we won't mention that!)

Having said that, I felt that the short stories within this book were well-written and enthralling. Evers tried several different styles of writing, most notably playing with the person-narrative - in one case using the 2nd-person. Obviously, some stories were stronger than others, but as a whole, the set worked well. All of them dealt with people who weren't completely happy with their lives, and the "smoking" element reflected that well. The theme of smoking was clear, but not too heavy-handed and it didn't feel like a massive beacon shouting 'Look, here's the smoking part'. It just gave the stories a bit of an artistic connection which I appreciated.

I don't always get on with short stories as I feel that just as you've become invested in the characters, the story ends and you have to get to grips with a whole new cast, but this book worked. I did sort-of subside at the end of each individual story, but got back on the wagon shortly after!

Pleasantly surprised.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories are not my favourite form of reading, but I'd heard lots about this collection and wanted to give it a go. The packaging on it's own makes the book stand out from the shelves and is very clever of the publisher. It's marketed in a cardboard carton that looks like a packet of cigarettes, the book is inside and extracted, just like a cig!
There is an air of darkness about all of these stories, with the theme of cigarette smoking running through them - the story of a bride-to-be who hunts down an ex-lover, to see if she has chosen the right man, only to be upset that he no longer smells of smoke, or the young girl who is recovering from a nervous breakdown who discovers that her whole world has become dirty and yellow and smelly.
Evers does not make smoking seem glamorous or cool, in fact, most of his characters lead a sad and lonely existance, which probably plays into the current anti-smoking trend.

There is no real continuity to the stories, either in content or in style and some of them feel a bit lacking, with abrupt endings that need a bit of figuring out
Reviewed through Amazon Vine Programme

[Rene Ijzermans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoewel het korte verhaal niet mijn genre is en dit dan ook zelden lees, werd ik verlokt door een lovende recensie, nu zo'n jaar terug. Daar kwam bij dat de boektitel me zeker ook aansprak. Want, wat heeft deze Stuart Evers over sigaretten te melden? Wel, er wordt overal terloops gepaft, en er wordt niet moeilijk over gedaan.
De verhalen verrasten me door de kracht ervan. Stuart weet in een paar pennenstreken een sfeer neer te zetten. Buitengewoon knap hoe weinig woorden hij nodig heeft om mij als lezer zo goed als meteen te pakken. Er hangt voortdurend een dreiging boven het verhaal, je voelt dat er iets staat te gebeuren, de personage een keerpunt in het leven nadert en soms is dit dermate subtiel of verhullend dat ik aan het eind van een verhaal met vragen achterbleef. Ik kon daarom niet meteen aan een volgend verhaal beginnen, hoe glashelder Evers ook weet te formuleren en ik altijd even de eerste zinnen van dat volgende verhaal las, uit pure nieuwsgierigheid. Ik heb de verhalen over maanden uitgesmeerd, pakte een volgend verhaal wanneer ik zin had om aan het eind met vragen achter te blijven en nu het boek uit is weet ik, dit smaakt naar meer.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ten Stories about Smoking by Stuart Evers

I was sent a paperback (unboxed) copy of this to review.

I approached this set of short stories with a little trepidation. As an ex-smoker I didn't want the romanticism of smoking (and it does have a romantic element – think of film noir) to pull me back to its nicotine heart. I needn't have worried.

Although each of the ten stories involve smoking, in only a couple of them is smoking a central theme. In some it seems entirely redundant or is relegated to after-sex lighting up. Smoker or not, I would recommend this collection. The prose is truly wonderful, the short stories are wonderful captures of the human condition – snap shots of life, if you will.

My reference to film-noir was not accidental. Each of the stories feel like a slice of Ingmar Burton or the dark streets of Sam Spade. Try reading 'What's in Swindon' or 'Eclipse' wwithout being moved or finding yourself thinking about it hours or days later.

4/5

[E.L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

After looking into the BBC Short story award articles, I have discovered a whole host of short story writers that I was previously unaware of. Seeing as I am writing and reading again I've made it a mission to try and read many of them. Stuart Evers was one of the authors mentioned. The rest are all on my Amazon wish list! :)
However, whilst most of the stories are well crafted, there was only one stand out story for me. The second one, 'Things Seem So Far Away Here'. I did really also enjoy two or three others. But at other times the 'cigarette' linking conceit seemed a bit laboured. I was dissapointed with the final story which I thought was simplistic and didn't work - trying to link a dying Carver to the narrator could have been more deftly handled, I felt.

[Alex Sarll]

As with most anthologies, some stories appealed to me more than others. There's perfectly competent stuff here that's perfectly competent but wouldn't be out of place in the Guardian magazine's annual short fiction issue. But then there are also sinister stories - I'm thinking especially of 'Real Work' - which remind me of Toby Litt at his best, and grab at you like the Ancient Mariner.

[Leonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found each of these ten stories utterly addictive and they left me wanting to know more each time. The characterisation was tight and the ideas refreshing. The situations felt real (even when they were a tad surreal). This was a great introduction to a new author for me. I have heard Evers chair a panel at a literary festival but have never given much thought to him as an author until now.

[Dd · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this collection of 10 short stories more than 5 stars I would! They were all super! So well written - very Raymond Carver’esque’ - who is one of my all time favorites and therefore this book was a sure win for me!
Brilliant stories that each capture the human condition in their own unique way.
I can’t wait to read more by this author!

[Paul Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book mostly because of the flap-top cigarette style case that it comes in and a sincere hope that the writing would be good. Happily, I was not disappointed. The stories in here can be bleak but don't let that put you off: they are also very enjoyable and very human.

[Gael Impiazzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The quote on the front cover says, "staggeringly impressive". I have to disagree.
Of the ten, I only really liked one - 'Things seem so far away, here' was a moving picture of misunderstanding.
The rest were flawed, dotted with inconsistencies, and just missing the mark for me.

[e · Rating 5 out of 5]

the stories are all unrelated to one another in everything except that they all, at one point or another, contain a cigarette - and i find that such an interesting perspective from which to spur a collection. the level of detail in formatting is commendable, and 10/10 packaging.

[Jodie Dickey · Rating 2 out of 5]

short stories all involve smoking in some way. clever but found that each story was too short and left me wanting to read more so a bit unsatisfying.

[Rosie Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, but it's certainly not my favourite collection of short stories. I enjopyed some a lot more than others.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed to be honest as I thought the stories would be better. The best thing about this book is how it is packaged.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 and a half stars really. Nothing special.

[Gabe Tansley · Rating 5 out of 5]

So so good. Bleak throughout, momentarily hilarious and wonderfully poignant. Superb short stories that show what the medium can be. Recommended.

[Saša Potisk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuart Evers : Deset zgodb o kajenju

"Vonj jo je zarezal v grlo in takrat se je spomnila, kaj je bil Carl rekel o tem, da človek ne sme biti nikoli pretirano čist. V hipu je razumela, kaj je hotel povedati: le ko si čist, ugotoviš, kako zelo umazano je življenje."

Deset zgodb o kajenju se bere kot predloga za filmski omnibus, in to sploh ne slaba predloga. Knjiga bo všeč mnogim, ni zapletena, je jezikovno minimalistična, v njej je veliko življenjskega. Govori o žalosti, osamljenosti, zapuščenosti, obžalovanju, hrepenenju… in vedno je zraven škatlica cigaret.

Odvisnosti so različne, vsaka je drugačna… so fizične ali psihološke... Tudi nikotin povzroča odvisnost, vendar pa pri kajenju v resnici ne gre za nikotin in nicorette, gre za hujšo odvisnost… Gre za odvisnost od nekaterih najmočnejših kulturnih vzorcev in odvisnost od v cigaretni dim zavite samopodobe. Nič ni bolj filmogeničnega kot zvijanje cigaretnega dima in film imamo vsi radi. Le kaj je lahko močnejše od tega?

Cigareta je kulturni identifikator, prapor svobode, manifest osebne avtonomije, pedagoška palica za starše, ki bi še vedno upravljali s teboj in ne razumejo, da ne smejo več "težit" (hja, sex drugs & rock'n'roll … in čik!), je izraz emancipiranosti in osvobojenosti (sufražetke), ključ do vstopa na seksualno tržišče (vse klasične femmes fatales so kadile), simbol ultimativne osvobojenosti in premoči (Sharon Stone v Prvinskem nagonu ni samo "spodaj brez" prekrižala nog, ampak si je tudi prižgala cigareto)... cigareta je obvezen del spolnega rituala (potem, ko se izmozgana ljubimca zvalita vsak na svojo stran postelje) in trenutkov sestavljanja resigniranega povzetka življenja (kot John Malkovich v oblaku dima v Živih). Pa vsi kavboji, heroji, uporniki brez razloga, ljubimci, zapeljivci… Le kdo ne bi bil odvisen od tega?

Cigaretni dim ustvarja navideznost varnosti, čarovnijo izjemnosti, izmuzljivost, zamejuje intimni prostor človeka, gradi obrambni zid okoli njegovega ranjenega jedra, vedno je v asociaciji z nevrozo zaradi "obrestnih mer ali sala na trebuhu, pokojnine in raka, zavožene kariere ali uničenih sanj"… Le kdo bi se odrekel pomirjujočemu zavetju v trenutkih zombijevskega obleganja svoje osebe s strani vseh stresov tega sveta?

Vsaka odvisnost je posebna. Le redke pa so seksi… še posebej, če so bili zgodnji poljubi zmes ponorelih hormonov ter okusa rumkole in cigarete. Od takšnih spominov "when we were young" pa človek preprosto želi ostati odvisen, zato močnejše odvisnosti ni. Škoda je samo, da ni zdravo.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 10 stories that are in Ten Stories About Smoking are a collection of tales about life, relationships, mistakes, the roads not taken and redemption.
We find all types of characters at all types of emotional crossroads. In What’s In Swindon? a couple is reuniting in a hotel room in Swindon, trying the recapture the energy of their lives together when they were young adults, trying to be cool, but in reality, only struggling. In Some Great Project, we find the son trying to reconnect with a father he never knew, through a long-lost, never mentioned half-brother. On finding out that his father had a secret life, he also learns that there were many secret lives, and half-siblings he never knew about growing up.
In Things Seemed So Far Away Here Linda is reconnecting with her brother, niece and sister-in-law, knowing that they are more interested in her struggle with addiction than what her life is like now. In the heart-breaking final scenes, the jumper she knitted for Poppy, her niece smells of smoke and discoloured, and she only notices it in the pristine surroundings of her brother’s house.
The Best Place in Town finds David separated from the stag party of his friend John, and as he tries to find his way back, he has a night of adventure that he won’t be forgetting for a while.
Although the theme of smoking, addiction, giving up, how smokers are seen, and the health benefits that come from giving up smoking are themes throughout the stories, they have more in common than a habit. The stories are all well written, giving a glimpse into the lives of people who come to life on the page, and the choices that we all make that lead us into the lives that we find ourselves living, with all of their myriad fractured relationships, partly made up pasts, and regrets.

[Simon Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection. Each story had its own dramatic universe and could easily have been expanded on, which is what I like in a short story. ‘The Best Place in Town’ was my favourite - a plot that draws you in with relatable characters, followed by some pleasing changes of direction.
Only downsides were the final story, which I found slightly baffling. And that I contacted the author to say I’d found a message he’d left in my second hand copy, which - in hindsight - made me feel like a cheapskate Annie Wilkes.

[Jack Hunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the biggest fiction fan I must admit. But, as is the case with a lot of these short stories, these feel particularly hit or miss.

Some I felt quite involved with the characters and had a clear image of what was happening, whereas others just felt a bit all over the place with random events happening. Not to mention some of the more lewd scenes that felt like were written by a 12 year old imagining what adults do.

That being said, I got this book for £3 in an Oxfam and there is some charm with the design of the book/box. Defo wouldn’t recommend buying new

[Lara Vehar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read more short story collections but ... this one just didn't do it for me. There were some good ones in there - like the one where a young woman looks through rose colored glasses thinking that she knitted this perfect sweater as a gift for her little niece only to suddenly realize that it in fact smells, is ugly and yellow from cigarette smoke. But the rest... I just couldn't connect and I don't remember half of them.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evers’ restrained stories often give the reader a snapshot of quiet despair and regret.

[Hope Pugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool