<\/center><\/p>\nYou see, the whole thing looks like a giant carton of cigarettes and you have to find the peel strip on the cellophane to get into the book – just like opening a pack. Then when you finally get the wrapper off, the book emerges from the box in much the same way a cigarette would. Brilliant!<\/p>\n
Let’s get the moralizing out of the way, first. In no way is this piece remotely adulatory of one of the more dangerous drugs around. However, it’s a free country and if you want to smoke go ahead. I own cigarette stocks now and then so have at it. Your lungs are my dividend. Just don’t blow the smoke in my direction or exhale in my home.<\/p>\n
This book is all about how cigarettes were the<\/i> glamor accessory over much of the twentieth century in Western culture, especially in the movies. It also shows pictures of how tobacco became increasingly demonized as that century drew to a close and how inept the advertising to curb consumption of the addiction that is nicotine really was.<\/p>\n
The photographs span the century as do the many graphic illustrations and there’s something for everyone her – great photography, skilled drawings, exceptional advertising. Too bad that the frisson<\/i> one gets from peeling the cellophane wrapper can be enjoyed but once!<\/p>\n
And when you have had enough, rush out and get Thank you for Smoking<\/a> with the wonderful Aaron Eckhart as the tobacco industry lobbyist who could sell cigarettes to a terminal lung cancer victim. Wonderfully acted and very on topic for our image obsessed and sound bite fixated society with its negligible attention span.<\/p>\n Smoke away. Just don’t make me pay for your cancer and coronary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pure joy. The undistilled, unalloyed pleasure of a new book is one that remains a perennial source of excitement. But until now I confess I have never opened a book with such an immense grin on my face as this one. You see, the whole thing looks like a giant carton of cigarettes and you … Continue reading No Smoking<\/span>