This book changed my life. I smoked for 5 years, never surpassing more than a few hours without nicotine. After I finished this book I haven't even been tempted to smoke. Anyone looking to give up smoking: I couldn't stress the importance of giving this book a try. You definitely won't regret it.
Read this as an audiobook, narrated brilliantly by Duncan Wells.
Full disclosure: I do not smoke cigarettes.
But I have spent my life around smokers, and am married to a (now former) smoker, and in that time I have encountered many, many people who wanted to quit smoking, books that said they could help them, and combinations of the two. I've read a few out of curiosity. This one is by far the best.
As an outsider, I can see it work better than the other books. Not saying they didn't do anything; maybe it brought my wife to this point.
But I enjoyed this book much, much more than any other non-smoking book I've ever encountered.
It's funny, it's interesting, and it's consistently insightful. It appears to function by listing every single excuse that cigarette smokers have for their cigarettes (and I've heard them all too) and demolishing them. It's a very thorough book. Every objection that a smoker could possibly raise has been answered in this book, and at the end of the book you're left with an imaginary British man in your head who tells you exactly why you don't need a cigarette every time you think you need a cigarette. I mean, I don't even smoke and I have this character in my mental inventory now. Allen Carr, crusty Englishman who tells no lies, would have been great on Game of Thrones.
Anyway, of all the anti-smoking books and videos and such, this is the only one I've ever seen that makes it fun. Maybe it was because my wife and I listened to it together, but it's been fun. This time has been fun. That's the most amazing thing ever.
She finished the book a week ago, and she hasn't smoked since, and she's 100% in a great mood about the whole thing. Just amazing. Even if she starts smoking again (and to be perfectly honest it's perfectly okay if she does, I love her no matter what and there are far worse things than cigarettes in this world), at least it's going to be more fun from now on. She's walking around in a state of shocked bliss because she quit smoking and it was fun.
The whole experience has given me a new respect for the power of literature.
I don't know if I have the "right" to recommend this book, but I'm certainly impressed.