Reviews

Cigarette Lighter by Jack Pendarvis

kafiro_ka_kafka's review against another edition

funny informative lighthearted medium-paced

3.25

The fact that, the evolution of lighters are directly linked with war is crazy. 

ashleystranded's review against another edition

“Cigarettes were considered cheap and womanly until men started killing one another while smoking them, then everybody liked them.”

vsbedford's review against another edition

3.0

A jumpy, scattershot look at the cigarette lighter as a cultural icon - there's a lot of "Look at this! And what about that!" in the organization of the piece that takes some getting used to. I think I would have appreciated a deeper dive into one of the topics Mr. Pendarvis touches upon (say, lighters in Humphrey Bogart movies), but there's enough here to spark a reader's interest in pursuing a subject matter on his or her own.

I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

bmodi's review against another edition

Much of this book was woven through pop culture references that I wasn't remotely aware of, and if I were, I would have enjoyed it even more. Millennials, shrug! :)

zeldamac's review against another edition

4.0

One time I found a lighter on a bench at House of Blues. Later someone asked if I had a light. I gave them the lighter. This has happened a few times in my life and maybe yours!

Want stories like that? But better because I'm not a writer and that's as interesting as my story is. Well them read this, lots of fact on lighters, including my favorite: where to find lighters in movies.

Fun, quick read. Interested to look into the other stories in this series one day.

sdbecque's review against another edition

2.0

I really like this series, and I was interested to read this dispatch on cigarette lighters, but it just never really came together for me.

Lighters are Jerry Bruckheimer. Matches are David Lynch. A lighter is a threat. A match is a promise. A match has a death wish. A lighter wants to live and fight another day.

Sentences like the above make me want to scribble in the margins, expand! Push harder! Instead, Pendarvis goes into a rant about Reservoir Dogs and how he didn't feel like re-watching it.

And so ultimately, this fails to do what the other books in the series (at least the ones that I've read) do so well, take a small thing and turn it and turn it until it becomes about something much bigger, [b:Golf Ball|20443317|Golf Ball|Harry J. Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1408915718s/20443317.jpg|31177834] does this with the thing about the moon, [b:Hood|25967440|Hood|Alison Kinney|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1556568334s/25967440.jpg|44442375] does this by linking European history to contemporary histories of power and powerlessness, and [b:Driver's License|20443321|Driver's License|Meredith Castile|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1408917170s/20443321.jpg|31177907] does both a media history representation and a section on state power and 9/11. This seemed to never get out of the media representation mode where he makes a list of places cigarette lighters appear. I wish the chapter on World War One and Zippo was expanded (for much of the book I wanted to say, slow down! Focus! Push harder!).

Ultimately, there's a telling line toward the end, "Materials is so skimpy that I regretted mentioning car cigarette lighters in earlier chapters and not saving them for this space.". Yep, sadly there's the sense here that there's not enjoy material driving this. Which, fair. Part of the reason I love these books is that I want to watch the tightrope walk the authors do taking something small and making it big. But I guess the tightrope isn't exciting unless everyone once and a while you watch somebody fall.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Cigarette Lighter (and which I was much delayed in reading and reviewing), all opinions are mine.