As a lobbyist, the sharp satire of Christopher Buckley's Thank You For Smoking resonated perfectly for me. Many of you will have seen the (very good) movie version, and it's one of those movies that I actually like so much that I was worried about reading the book! It turns out they're very similar, telling the story of lead tobacco spokesman Nick Naylor and his constant fight to defend the industry. Naylor appears on Larry King, on Oprah, before Congress, and battles for his job while his boss tries to replace him with his pretty young protegee.

While the movie gets a lot of mileage out of the divorced Nick's young son, he's very much a background character in the book. Instead, the focus is on Nick's quest to make smoking cool again by getting the movie studios to put it on screen, and a bizarre kidnapping in which Nick is abducted and covered in nicotine patches. When he's not busy flying to Hollywood and being abducted, Nick is having two different flings (one with his corporate rival, one with a reporter) and hanging out with his closest (read: only) friends, the lobbyists for the alcohol industry and the firearm industry, who are constantly squabbling about whose product kills more people.

Satire, like most comedy, can be very tricky to nail with the right tone, and I'd read a Buckley book a couple years ago that I didn't think quite landed. But I always believe in giving an author I was unimpressed with a second chance, because everyone has some variance in the quality of their output and some books you just don't read at the right time. Happily, I found this one excellent. Even though this book was written in the early 90s, there haven't been enough significant changes in the political process or corporate communications that the humor has lost its relevance or edge.

On the flip side, it is a satire, so character development (usually big for me as a reader) was pretty minimal and the plot was of course exaggerated. If smoking/tobacco is something you take seriously, this book will likely be more irritating than amusing. But if you've seen and liked the movie, or you work in corporate communications/government relations, there's a lot to enjoy here. ( )

For first two thirds it's just perfect. And even only these parts will still make this book worth reading.

A pretty funny book with a somewhat interesting story, but I started getting bored during the last half, and almost quit reading.

I saw the movie a few years back, and enjoyed it a lot; usually, I like the book better than the movie, but in this case, it seems the other way around. And I don't remember the movie, so it's not that I knew the story already. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a humor book right now. ( )

85% as funny as Buckley thinks it is. ( )

Nick Naylor works as a lobbyist in Washington for The Academy of Tobacco Studies in the late 1990’s where legislation is making his job so much harder. Adding to his woes is his new boss who doesn’t like him and wants to install his girlfriend in Nick’s position. Knowing he’s fighting a losing battle, Nick decides to go down fighting and takes some swipes at the other guests lined up against him on the Oprah show. This earns him some rare good press and also the admiration of the head of the industry that decides to take him under his wing. It also earns him some death threats to go along with the regular hate mail he usually receives. Surely they can’t be serious?

This is a black comedy and satirical look at the lobbyist industry of American politics that makes a sympathetic character out of somebody who shouldn’t really be one. Even though he’s basically pedalling death the reader really wants him to succeed and genuinely roots for him during his travails. There are some great bits of humour to be had during this read while having a go at the big industry, the whole political lobbyist movement and the press corps too. I have yet to see the movie that’s based on this book so can’t compare but I’m not averse to finding out at some point in the future. ( )