The Smoking Book
- ISBN-10
- 0226773329
- ISBN-13
- 9780226773322
- Category
- Literary Collections
- Pages
- 248
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2008-04-15
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Author
- Lesley Stern
Description
The Smoking Book is a dreamlike structure built on the solid foundation of two questions: 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.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
A Concordance to Conrad's Victory
By Todd K. Bender, James W. Parins, Robert J. Dilliganossession:-amā'the “oise: , ś head'ail but lying under her as deadly, ... seemed to undes stand, exactly how to deal with conceited death 's head.
-
Understanding Ingeborg Bachmann: Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature
By Karen AchbergerSimilarly , Nadja in " Word for Word " is reluctant to call Mr. Frankel by his first name , Ludwig , an act which would signal an acceptance of his appropriateness for her , since Ludwig — like Robert , Ernst , Fritz , Erich , Franz ...
-
Bluegrass Cavalcade
By Thomas D. ClarkEllen went to Mrs. Donahue's house for help and Pius was soon hurrying to St. Lucy to telephone for a doctor. When Pius returned he brought the Carriers who remained all night. Bill and Pius helped the doctor set the bone and bind in ...
-
Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance
By Karen Tei YamashitaThe mother was on Donahue. 60 Minutes did the doc and they'll repeat the news at ten. People dying, people killing, people crying— you can see it all on TV. Reality is really on TV. It's just another way to see— starvation in North ...
-
Byron: The Erotic Liberal
By Jonathan David GrossPhilip P. Wiener . New York : Charles Scribner's Sons , 1973 . Plato . Plato : The Symposium . Trans . and ed . Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff . Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Company , 1989 . Plummer , Kenneth , ed .
-
Evening Street Review Number 5
By AMANDA ADAMS, ANDREA BATES, CYNTHIA BELMONTWhen the credits started to roll and Carmen, needing her meds and cigarettes, handed Ryan her car keys, Mary Ellen stared in disbelief. “She's giving him her keys!” she thought, eyeing Pepe, trying to catch his attention because he knew ...
-
The Science of Herself
By Karen Joy FowlerHere she debuts a provocative new story written especially for this series.
-
The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology
By Karen Joy Fowler, Alexander McCall Smith, Francine ProseWe make our way slowly into the assembly hall, where 26 identical pillars cut from one rock line the sides. A fat stupa cut of the same rock stands at the innermost part of the hall; 20 feet high, it's shaped like an overturned bowl ...
-
Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts
By John H. Walton... 126 , 134 174 , 203 , 211 , 212 , 216 Theodorides , Aristide , 93 Wiseman , D. J. , 50 , 51 , 67 , Thomas , D. Winton , 170 , 84 , 85 , 89 , 93 , 170 , 200 171 , 200 Thompson , R. Campbell , Wolf , Herbert , 126 22 , 47 , 113 Wright ...
-
Selected Letters: Nicholas Hagger's Letters on His 55 Literary and Universalist Works
By Nicholas HaggerEveryone seems to have got something out of the speeches, the Metaphysical Revolution was declared, and Shelley's wind is now scattering “sparks, my words among mankind” (the passage Kathleen Raine quoted). We now hope it translates ...