Smoking, sin and science
Thursday, October 11, 2007 
Forest is about to re-enter the book publishing business. Some years ago we produced what - in publicity if not commercial terms - were two highly successful titles: The Forest Guide to Smoking in London and The Forest Guide to Smoking in Scotland. The former even featured an introduction by the late, great Auberon Waugh and a preface by the late, great Jeffrey Bernard. (Do you spot a trend here?) Sadly, if either volume were published today, I fancy they would be somewhat slimmer.
Neither title was cheap to produce so our first foray into book publishing proved to be our last. Until now. Earlier this year I received a 40,000-word manuscript from journalist and author Mat Coward. Mat's books include crime novels, science fiction, children’s fiction, a history of radio comedy, and the "notorious" Success And How To Avoid It. He has also written for radio, television, and innumerable magazines and newspapers.
The manuscript lived up to Mat's impressive CV. He describes it as "a short book (or long pamphlet) which I’ve been writing, on and off, for over 20 years. It’s a polemic in which I consider the anti-smoking movement as a religion and explain why I think it’s so dangerous."
Forty Lashes: Smoking, Sin and Science is an engaging and substantial piece of work. I loved it. Mat wants it to be read by as many people as possible so the plan is to print a few thousand copies for those who want to buy a hard copy, and also make it available, free of charge, as a pdf, from the Forest website. Watch this space.
Reader Comments (1)
ash-trash bigots