Smoking: The Artificial Passion

by David Krogh

Book Overview

Smoking is a habit fraught with intriguing paradoxes. How can the same cigarettes be relaxing now and a pick-me-up later? Why, in the fact of overwhelming medical advice, do so many people ignore the harmful consequences and continue smoking? David Krogh's book is a lively and informative explanation of what is known about this passion for tobacco.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0716722461
• ISBN13: 9780716722465
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: W.H. Freeman & Company
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Information on Smoking

This book was so instrumental in helping me to quit smoking. There’s no judgment in this book, just information on how nicotine interacts with one’s body and brain. It demystified what my body was going through when I quit. I smoked over a pack a day for 20 years and I’ve now been free of cigarettes for 25 years.

This book may have saved my life. I quit after one read.

Thanks David - I must have read every book in the universe on the subject of giving up smoking. I read your book and was able to quit a 16 year pack-a-day habit, because your book was not about giving up smoking, but ABOUT smoking. Eternally grateful, Jason

This book helped me to quit, 2 & 1/2 years ago

I had been a reluctant smoker for 30 years, knowing I was killing myself, but incapable of following thru initial enthusiams of quitting for any length of time. While this book was not the only way I finally quit smoking, it was a substantial help. It gave me a scientific, biological basis for understanding my (to me) freakish addiction that defied my own common sense. The book was also entertaining. It's not a quit smoking guide. The author never was (foolish enough to be) a smoker. It helped me to see my smoking from the "outside", truly. I hope it comes back in print.

A riveting book that is well researched.

A fantastic book that takes the issue seriously. This is a bookfor anyone touched by smoking in anyway. Non-smokers will learn theawesome power of this drug. If your recovering don't pass up this powerful aid to understanding what your up against. There is so much Info in here and it's all valuable to understanding the mechanisms of Nicotine and Smoking addiction. The author is very fair and not trying to scold the smoker he clearly understands how hard it would be to quit and holds off with advice until the end so that you don't feel pushed.

A very useful reference book

This book has been a constant source of information for me as I attempt to quit smoking. It describes the physical and social reasons for smoking, including relevant scientific research, without descending into scientific jargon. Krogh's general attitude toward smoking (objective) made it possible for me to read this book as both a smoker and (future) non-smoker and gain numerous insights into my reason's for smoking and problems with quiting.

Critical reading for smokers and those who care about them

An extremely intelligent, comprehensive and rational survey of the sociology, psychology and physiology of smoking. If you smoke, it will help you understand why, in a clear and non-judgmental way. If you love someone who smokes, this book will help you understand why cigarettes have such a remarkable grip on him or her. Not a "how to stop smoking" book, but rather a "how to understand smoking" book that is bound to save a few lives and maybe (in my case) a relationship.