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Published
Mar 1999
Main Genre
General Fiction General Fiction
Rating
Pages
320

About This Book

Gregory Simpson is thirty and trying to quit, keeping ten fingers glued to a keyboard in order to fight their incessant ache to hold a burning paper tube filled with dead leaves. In twenty entries in twenty days for twenty to a pack—one word for each cigarette inhaled over the course of ten smoke-filled years—he examines his life in tense, withdrawal-induced fits and starts: the friendships cemented and defined by nicotine; the intimate relationships crushed or stifled; the acrid, immoral and rebellious satisfactions. But with strength of purpose and improved concentration comes the sobering revelation that his habit is more political than personal. Even if he kicks, Gregory realizes, he's still living in a tobacco world.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Gregory Simpson is thirty and trying to quit, keeping ten fingers glued to a keyboard in order to fight their incessant ache to hold a burning paper tube filled with dead leaves. In twenty entries in twenty days for twenty to a pack—one word for each cigarette inhaled over the course of ten smoke-filled years—he examines his life in tense, withdrawal-induced fits and starts: the friendships cemented and defined by nicotine; the intimate relationships crushed or stifled; the acrid, immoral and rebellious satisfactions. But with strength of purpose and improved concentration comes the sobering revelation that his habit is more political than personal. Even if he kicks, Gregory realizes, he's still living in a tobacco world.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

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First Edition Mar 1999 HarperPerennial ISBN 0380731940
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May 2005 Vintage (UK) ISBN 0099477556
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Oct 1997 Arcade Publishing ISBN 1559703997
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Oct 1997 Skyhorse Publishing ISBN 1628720662
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May 2012 Skyhorse Publishing ISBN 1611456525
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May 2012 Skyhorse Publishing ISBN B0080K3I42
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Nov 2018 Vintage ISBN 1473568137
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