As a recent arrival to the United States from Australia, a visit to one of its famous bookstores seemed in order. I had only stepped through the door when I spied Beard’s novel, which, although published in 1996, hadn’t come across my desk before. I was glad I bought it. For all you non-smokers out there (including me), this book gives a very convincing impression of what we might imagine the superlative pleasures of smoking to be, and the agony …