Tobacco Books

This book has helped me day by day to not smoke... one day at a time.... This is a huge accomplishment after smoking for almost 50 years.

I read this book when I quit smoking and it helped me so much. It is written by someone with an AA background and is written in that kind of a format. Each day for the first few months is a story about someone's struggle with smoking. Then there is a short devotional. I would read a chapter each night before I went to sleep. Somehow that really reinforced my resolve not to smoke for one more day.

I give this book a 5 star for helping you keep the resolve to not smoke!!

I bought this book 16 years ago, after being in A.A. for one year. I stopped smoking the day I started reading it. It is great motivational reading. That book, along with a subliminal tape to quit smoking helped me finally kick the habit. I am forever grateful for the courage and strength to quit. This book is AWESOME!!! Keep an open mind and take it One Day at a Time! I lended this book to someone a year after I quit and it was never returned to me because, sadly, that person died shortly after with cancer. I am buying it again to give to someone who is ready. Good Luck...this book will help!

I recieved this book in the mail yesterday, and today it is ripped up and sitting my kitchen garbage can where it belongs. I didn't even want to take it to the used book store and get a couple of bucks for it because I did not want someone else to waste thier money on it. The index is very decieving. It appears that the author is going to cover all of these topics, but all she did was compile a bunch of peoples stories about their struggles with cigarettes and put them all togother and call it a book. The stories are pretty lame too,at least the ones I read. Admittedly, I did not read the entire book-my urge to put this trash where it belonged was too strong. If I had as much distaste for cigarettes as I have for this book I would never smoke again. This review is my last bit of closure and now I can get on with my life.

I have been a 1 pack-a-day-smoker for about 25 years and even though the physical need and mental desire to quit became stronger every year, I just couldn't do it or 'stay quit'. Tried about 4 times with success-rates averaging from a few weeks to a few (3) months ... But at some point, I picked up that cigarette again. And usually I didn't even have a good reason. So basically I wanted desperately to be motivated enough to quit for good now. This book provided me literally with e v e r y t h i n g I always wanted (and needed) to know about smoking & quitting. An informed person, I was then gently taken by the hand and even more gently guided to never-smoke-again-land. Who would ever have imagined that I would be eagerly & impatiently waiting for the day I would (finally!) be a l l o w e d to quit !... This book got me to that point. And beyond smoking... And now, over 1 smoke-free year later, I'm still enjoying my new life. Without having killed my friends/family/collegues/myself in the process... So I would like to extend my infinite thanks to Dr. and Mrs. Quit for the precious information and extremely motivating guidance they provide in this quit-smoking bible... A definite recommendation : reads like a good novel, puts quite a few smiles on your face and last but not least...(don't say I didn't warn you !) there's a 95 percent chance that you won't make it to the end of this book smoking ! Wanna bet ?

I've tried everything to quit smoking, hypnosis, patches, acupuncture, cold turkey (at least 100 times), and nothing has worked for more than 3 months. I went to the library one day, and this book caught my eye, thank goodness. It is a wealth of information for a smoker wanting desperately to quit. From this book, I have developed my "3 W" plan (Water,Walk,and Web). And for me, it's working. Question: When is the website going to be ready? (drandmrsquit.com)

This book is interesting, and I bought it while trying desperatley to quit while I was pregnant. It focuses way too much on available treatment methods (the patch, drugs, etc.) and not enough on practical gradual cessation. I wanted to know exactly what benefits my body was getting for being smoke-free for an hour, a day, a month, etc., because anyone who's quit knows how unbelievably horrible you feel, especially the first week, and what prevented my quitting in the past was not seeing some immediate benefits such as greater oxygen or at least better endurance during exercise. I haven't smoked in 5 years, and I'm glad I quit, but I'm still not understanding how it benefitted me beyond the typical exagerated and questionable research into the likelihood of obtaining certain diseases. A better book is the no nag guide.

I smoked 2 packs a day when I was using. I had tried all kinds of ways to quit. Then I found this little book. Read it on my lunch break.
It's simple, so easy, you take your time, your own pace, learn as you read, change your mind and stop when you're ready.
I actually quit 2 weeks before my scheduled cut-off date. I just didn't want to smoke anymore. Never went back, never wanted to and there's been plenty of stress since then. But I just dealt with it.
You can do it, if I could. Read a Book!

I used this book to quit smoking and it really worked for me. I got me thinking about why I smoked and had a great program on how to quit. I'm always recommending the book to others.

I am a relapsed ex-smoker, but now have beginning health issues due to smoking, so I headed to my local bookstore for renewed motivation. I had read a great little book that spurred my initial quit two years ago, but couldn't remember the name. That book wasn't on the shelves, so I decided on "Quit & Stay Quit" based on the back cover info, primarily:

"Before you try to quit -- before you even decide if quitting is for you -- invest some time in 'Quit & Stay Quit'."

By page 44, I knew this was the not the book I needed. On page 7, there is a note:

"In a journal, (page 21) add a reason yourself -- one of the reasons you want to keep smoking."

There was no mention to begin a journal in the introductory pages, but no big deal. However, Page 21 gives no information whatsoever about a journal. It's a totally different chapter entitled "Smoking Is An Addiction."

Up to page 44, there were a couple sentences that stated "Now that you have quit (unless you are still smoking), ...", but the statement on page 44 ended my reading:

"Right now, you are a smoker who is not smoking. (If you are smoking while reading this, you must be highly [italicized] addicted.)"

HUH? What happened to: "Before you try to quit -- before you even decide if quitting is for you ..." There are still 230 pages to read!!

The author dedicates the book to a fellow doc that died from smoking, but it's clear the author never smoked in his life. I know I'm only speaking from review of the first 44 pages, but he is simply reusing the same tips & tricks: write down why you want to smoke, write down why you want to quit, record each cigarette of the day, etc.

Nothing new here, in addition to confusing and a little deceptive. Save your money.

I think all the books I've seen on this subject merit high praise, but Striking Images stands out for its layout and focus on the artwork itself. The juxtaposed covers allow for many great samples to be consumed by the eyes at once, while other blown up images assume a Pop Art painting quality. So do not mistake this for a book on vintage matchbooks; this is about the art on the cover. At this price I feel this book's a deal considering the design and thought devoted to it by Mr. Beauchamp - well done! I've encountered his unique passion and perspective on other ephemeral subjects in various issues of Blab!, another book I've collected and highly recommend!!

As the back cover says 'Striking Images is a must see collection of vintage covers...More than 500 images inside!' Good enough for me because I love books about popular visual culture and this one could join the other three I already have about match art.

However I was rather disappointed in the book because of its production. The main problem is that every matchbook has been reduced to a square of either the front or back and then presented butted up (mostly) four to a page so they hardly look like matchbooks at all. It's as if a book about stamps had all the perforations cut off and then joined together. Many are shown whole page, making them too big and over-emphasising the crude printing quality. The book really ends up looking like a collection of badly printed, colorful and exuberant, advertising graphics. Though divided into eight sections there are no page numbers except on the chapter openers and with the covers crammed into all the pages it is annoyingly difficult to find a particular section.

It could have looked so much better like the earlier Chronicle Matchbook Art by Yosh Kashiwabara. Here many of the matchbooks have their front and back shown but the main thing is that they have plenty of page space surrounding each one. Another book: Close Cover Before Striking: The Golden Age of Matchcover Art (Recollectibles) is a handsomely designed title with thirteen chapters of well presented covers. Both books show how fascinating these throw-way bits of art are.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover,

Even if you don't care about matchbook art or matchbook collecting, this book is highly recommended. It collects these beautiful pieces of pop culture ephemera and presents them as art, which they truly are. Each page packs a graphic punch that will knock your socks off. Not only are the endless variety of matchbook designs visually stunning, but Mr. Beauchamp treats the medium itself as part of the piece, enlarging the images so the texture of the paper and even the impression the ink makes become art. A very tasteful and classy treatment for this disposable art form. (I was going to say "unmatched" but I stopped myself.)

The selected artworks run the gamut from restaurants to mascot characters to cars to strip clubs. There's a whole chapter devoted to inspiring, art deco imagery from World War II, any one of which would make a great poster.

Given the limitations of the medium and the printing budget, many of the matchbooks are designed with just two or three colors, making this a textbook for the graphics arts student. In an era in which any ink jet printer can reproduce millions of colors, it's fascinating to see what yesterday's artisans did with such a limited palette.

Some of the matchbook covers are close to actual size while others are blown up to fill the page. Given that there are as many as four pictures on some pages and the book totals 272 pages, there are in excess of 500 pieces of art reproduced here. It's impossible to find a favorite among so many gems.

If you're looking for a good summer book to enjoy at the beach, prepare yourself to read "Close cover before striking" a few hundred times. But if you want to soak your eyeballs in America's rich graphic heritage, Striking Images is a must have.

The agricultural origins of Americans' habits of revolution, even their habits of being distinguishable as Americans are too little emphasized, but T.H. Breen's "Tobacco Culture" goes a long way to rectifying that.

The situation in the mid-18th century was not the first instance of unrest on the land, only the most consequential; it was followed by similar -- but different -- upheavals that led to civil war, to Roosevelt democracy and, the revolutionary spirit atrophying as the overall wealth and stability of America grew, to the disgruntlement of the Midwestern corn/hog/cattle farmers in the 1970s.

A theoretical superstructure to bring all these into a general view would be welcome, if justified, but perhaps the rebelliousness of the farmers is not as coherent a concept as I think it is. American farmer unrest is different in kind from the jacqueries and rural incendiarism in other times and places, because the American farmer was, usually, a capitalist.

Never more so than in mid-century Virginia and Maryland. Indebted capitalists, but capitalists all the same. And men with social status and political power -- not the source of radical revolution in most times and places.

Breen's little book emphasizes the debts, the risks, the resentments as Scottish factors gradually gained (as it seemed to the farmers) a stranglehold on the independence of the rural plutocracy. The factors, in their own minds, were rather in the position of a fashionable West End tailor whose lordly customers are so far in arrears that he dare not keep cutting coats for them. It was a complicated situation, and it is a question how well the players truly understood where they stood in it, for all their education and sophistication,

Perhaps Breen understands them better than they understood themselves.

He warns against looking for monocausal explanations of world-shaking changes and explicitly denies that planter debt can explain American revolutionary changes. Of course. There were patriots in the Middle Colonies and in New England who were not affected by the long decline in tobacco as a commodity. Nevertheless, "Tobacco Culture" goes on the shelf with other key volumes that help us understand the greatest political event in human history: the American Revolution.

I'm glad to see this was reprinted, as I found it to be a quite interesting look at reasons why American elites supported a war that most likely would have cost them everything they owned. The answer: they didn't own anything by the end of the 18th century. The reason why is that they had bought everything on credit against their tobacco crop. When the economy nosedived, the British merchants who held the debts wanted their due. The ensuing resentment by the planters led to support for the American revolutionary movement.

Breen used exhaustive research in putting this book together, and even threw in some neat information on the Founding Fathers. Did you know Washington failed as a tobacco farmer? That he continually loaned money to a deadbeat that never repaid him? It's in this book.

Another aspect of this book I found interesting was the step by step process of growing tobacco in the 18th century. It's hard to believe that anyone made a successful go of it. A neat book with a neat argument.

This work explores the relationship between tobacco, debt, and revolution in the pre-revolutionary Chesapeake. T.H. Breen's path to revolution flows from (1) trouble in the tobacco economy to (2) increasing planter debt to (3) a fear over lost autonomy to (4) a collective frustration to (5) a commitment to cultural renewal. The collective frustration and commitment to renewal both coincided with the resistance to Britain over constitutional issues. While not advocating any monocausal explanation, Breen does argue that the planter's fear over lost autonomy was necessary for the revolution. My main criticism is that he assumes that the elites set the pattern for behavior in the Chesapeake and therefore does not adequately explain why the Chesapeake's non-elites supported the revolution. This question regarding Virginia's non-elites seems particular important given Virginia's relative internal unity during the revolutionary period. Overall, Breen's exploration of the cultural world of the Chesapeake elite does enhance our understanding of the path to revolution. I recommend this work to any student of revolutionary America.

It is hard to talk about "Cured by Fire" in casual overview because it touches on so many native feelings about life, death, faith, suffering and survival. It is the story of two good men, who, through a series of horrible events, endure difficult tests. One falls apart relatively early and the other, ensconced in his own "temple" of faith, only turns bitter at the very end. By that time the other man, severly disfigured and by now a gutter drunk, has turned a corner and comforts the dying and formerly faithful man to find a peace of his own. It is a story about growing up, heartbreak and hard living, woven together in clear-eyed flashbacks that bring the avid reader to a white-hot, emotional finale. A stirring work on every count.

McLaurin's eloquent novel of loss and redemption begins with two homeless men, Lewis and Elbridge, on a hillside near Seattle, waiting for one of them, Elbridge, to die. And it ends (I'm not ruining any surprises) with Elbridge's death and Lewis' first steps back into the world.

In between is the story, told in alternate voices - first person for Elbridge, third for Lewis, of how the destinies of these two Southern men so far from home become intertwined.

Lewis and Elbridge have little in common besides an impoverished boyhood, a hideous tragedy and fire. Lewis is a white boy from North Carolina, son of a drunk, who often ends up in foster care with a viciously abusive church-going woman. From the age of 8 he has worked the tobacco harvest, graduating from barn to fields at age 11. Heat waves rise from the page with McLaurin's descriptions of this backbreaking work and the people who do it. Lewis' fellow croppers are all black: "Sweat had dried on their faces, and their forearms and hands were caked with tobacco gum."

Elbridge is the son of a part-Indian white woman who ran off in his infancy and a black man he never knew. Raised in a Kentucky mountain hollow by his grandfather, a retired coal miner, he suffers the taunts of his schoolfellows with a bewildered fatalism. But home to Elbridge is a place of simple warmth where you can almost smell the greens melting down in bacon grease.

Elbridge's needs are met by the garden, the fishing and his grandfather. And when he was 12 Elbridge received a shotgun. His grandfather warns him, "It can kill you like a snake if you let it. Don't ever forget that. But it can feed you too. And it can free you from the world. Maybe just for an hour or so, but it can free you."

Lewis, too, receives this gift of freedom, which makes his isolation an idyll rather than a prison. But suddenly he gets his growth and the "white trash" outcast becomes a football star - and much in demand by the world, so much so his only escape is into the woods with his rifle.

No spurts of growth for Elbridge. Instead his grandfather dies and he's forced off the rented land. Wandering, he finds religion. "I kept reading my Bible, and I found out I was invisible. ...My mixed blood was only on the outside, and the real me was inside and pure as the first snow....I was a temple."

Both men establish families and lose them, which is the crux of the story. For Lewis, tragedy is a taunt from a vengeful god and he dares God to kill him and is, very nearly, killed in a fire. For Elbridge the fire is the tragedy which takes his life but leaves him still walking the earth, following God's will in a search for meaning.

McLaurin's early chapters are the strongest, immersing the reader in the heat and earthy smells of the south, the all-encompassing loneliness of a child, the petty meanness and wisdom of adults. While the beauty of the writing never flags, the book's themes of self-deception, blame and eventual self-knowledge and acceptance seem simplistic and weaker than the fine prose they're couched in. Still, this beautifully written book shows a strong knowledge of, and sympathy with, the human heart.

I used this CD every day for 2 weeks like it said, and I noticed less withdrawl symptoms and cravings than I had on previous attempts to quit smoking. I also listened to the music part alone throughout the day. I listened to the whole thing & did the visualization part before bed.

I have recommended this CD to friends, and recommend to anyone who has an open mind about subliminal messages & the like. I smoked 1 to 1&1/2 packs a day before deciding to quit.

Well it may be ok for some women, light smokers. It is only half subliminal. It is more like a peptalk,for smokers with low selfesteem.
Didn't help a 2pk a day 25yr smoker at all.

What is often neglected when writing about "tobacco", the book covers next to all aspects of it, i.e. from the production of the plant to processing the crop, buying, trading, cigarette manufacture, advertising, sponsorhsip and control policies. I profited a lot from the precise information on indivdual farmers (who started the commercial business in 1602 ? You'll find it here, and also why he is better known under the name of his wife), as well as on companies. etc. Fascinating for a geographer with historical interest to see the similarity of interlinkages between rise and fall of growing areas as well as farming societies - and to draw conclusions what is about to happen now in Third World growing countries. While most of the large monographies put a blind eye on the detrimental ecological consequences of growing - the author does not. Since the chapters are ranked chronologically, with a special interest for example in Africa, you sometimes get lost - and learn a lot about other areas.

This book is an overview of the culture and business of tobacco. After a introductory chapter that covers the botany and chemistry of tobacco, Goodman presents a cultural and economic history of the plant and its products. He begins with Native Americans, who used tobacco in ceremonies and approached it with reverence. He then details how European explorers took tobacco back to Europe, and how its use was quickly adopted there by the general public. Its adoption was hastened by medical reports claiming numerous health benefits of consuming tobacco, from preventing colds to curing bowel ailments. Goodman describes how tobacco played an important role in settling the New World and how its role in the early history of slaving cultures there. He goes on to describe the role that tobacco growing played in colonial economies and how the invention of the mass produced cigarette helped change consumption patterns worldwide. Towards the end of the book, he explores the history of government involvement in tobacco production and consumption, before turning to big business, consolidation and diversification of the tobacco industry. He closes with a short chapter on modern health concerns relating to tobacco, and how they may affect the culture of tobacco consumption and production.

The book is very academic in tone and structure- -it reads like a dissertation. Original sources are cited throughout the text, and there are numerous tables. At the end of the book is a 2-page glossary and a 40-page bibliography. Although Goodman's style is reasonably clear, he does have an annoying habit of explicitly stating his main ideas only at the very end of a section, or at the beginning of the following chapter. If he had introduced his sections with explicit statements of his ideas, the text would have been easier to follow.

Clarke's wide ranging selection of reviews,spanning a period of fifty years, reflect an intellect seriously and, in my opinion, immorally, neglected by those claiming to be students of English literature. His incisive comments and criticisms on the work of many of his contemporaries, coupled with his vast knowledge of poetry and the means of critique offer today's students a window into the mind of one of the greatest writers to come out of Ireland this century. Long in the shadow of Yeats and Kavanagh, Clarke has yet to take his place among the greats of Irish literature. This worthy book will go some way in placing him where he belongs, alongside the more easily recognised names to come to prominence .

This book covers Pipes, Cigars, Cigarettes, How to Buy a pipe, How to blend Tobacco, How to smoke a cigar and the care of tobacco products.