The Smoking Diaries [Paperback]

Simon Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2005

When he turned sixty-five, the acclaimed playwright Simon Gray began to keep this diary: not a careful honing of the day's events with a view to posterity but an account of his thoughts as he had them, honestly, turbulently, digressively expressed. The Smoking Diaries is the result, in which one of Britain's most amusing and original writers reflects on a life filled with cigarettes (continuing), alcohol (stopped), several triumphs and many more disasters, shame, adultery, friendship, and love. Few diarists have been as frank about themselves, and even fewer as entertaining. "So here I am, two hours into my sixty-sixth year.... The truth is that I'm nastier than I used to be back when—back when I was sixty-four, for instance, when I was nastier than when I was at sixty-two and so forth, back and back, always the less nasty the further back, until I get to the age when I was pre-nasty, at least consciously, when the only shame I knew was the shame of being found out, which was when I was, well, about eight, I suppose."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

About to celebrate his 66th birthday, Gray, the British author of more than 30 plays, including the forthcoming Broadway revival of Butley (which will star Nathan Lane), started writing this witty journal of passing time, missed opportunities and his personality quirks, with the underlying topic of his smoking three packs of cigarettes daily and the wheezing and dizziness that accompany his habit. He traces his romance with tobacco to the incessant smoking of his overaffectionate Mummy and emotionally distant Daddy, and to his savvy 1940s and '50s childhood spent as part of a girl-run kiddie gang in Montreal. Gray's funny vignettes introduce characters such as Mr. and Mrs. Alzheimer (he suffers from the disease; she, therefore, is an "Alzheimer widow"), and "schoolmaster floggers" Mr. Brown and Mr. Burn. While somberly noting the demise of his parents and several friends from smoking-relating cancer and emphysema, Gray keeps up a constant comedy routine about the British literary world, his claustrophobia in cars and trains, the TV series Law and Order and other random subjects. His memoir is a dark comedy, full of intimacy, limericks, wisdom and fun. Photos.
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Review

"* The Smoking Diaries: 'Simon Gray's The Smoking Diaries is one of the funniest books I have ever read in my life' Philip Hensher, Spectator * The Smoking Diaries: The Year of the Jouncer: 'A great achievement, a terrific read, every page crammed with jokes, philosophical observations... Volume III is keenly awaited' Lloyd Evans, Spectator" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1rst Caroll & Graf Edition, 2005 edition (July 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786715456
• ISBN-13: 978-0786715459
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,831,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For the Funny, Cranky and Mean-Spirited Smoker, February 27, 2008

By 

Patrick Odaniel (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Smoking Diaries (Paperback)

This book was a huge bestseller in England and spawned a couple of sequels. The author, Simon Gray, is a well-known British playwright (of course, he's unheard of in the United States). Gray is very witty and his diaries constitute the perfect companion for anyone growing old but not only unwilling to go gently into that good night but instead thoroughly willing to give the good night a boffing about the bollocks. Oh, there's a lot of smoking in this book--as the title suggests--so if you find that objectionable, well, please feel free to go willingly away.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb memoir, December 20, 2008

By 

Sirin (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Smoking Diaries (Paperback)

Simon Gray is at the end. His friends are ill or dying, he is ill and dying - HAS now died. All is crumbling and fragmenting in a tumult of despair and decay. But there is great bravery and humour aplenty in these memoirs as Simon Gray documents a year in his life replete with digressions that shed light on the rich treasure trove of his mind.

There are superb riffs on the friends and strangers he encounters, holidays he takes, books he is reading - books he wishes he was reading instead, memories of his childhood sexual awakenings via American crime writer Hank Janson, reflections on various points of his life since and grim projections into his highly curtailed future.

The stories are fantastic. Such as the tale of a chain smoking alcoholic friend whose wife, on his deathbed, forced a glass of whisky and a lit cigarette into each hand 'if photographed, it could serve as the ghastliest of warnings - look what I have done'. And a vignette from a train journey in Suffolk when he encounters what he takes to be a psychopathic murderer but is just an aimiable gentleman trying to reclaim his newspaper which the author has taken.

Ditch those tedious memoirs from whiny American affluenza riddled losers who write about how they messed up their lives through drugs and got them back together again, and pick up Gray's memoirs (many more in the series than this) which show how rich the form can be when put in the hands of a wily old English writer with plenty of wit and interests in life.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book, March 10, 2009

By 

Charles Kelly "Charles Kelly" (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Smoking Diaries (Paperback)

The book was excellent, dealing with issues related to the end of life. It arrived in good physical condition.