I was bored the other night at work, and typed in Cigar into Amazon.com. Tons of books are out there, but it honestly seems that most were written during the 90's heyday.
Does anyone have recommendations of good reference material that might not be outdated?
Posts: 205 | Location: New Jersey | Registered: January 14, 2007
Originally posted by elaw: Flashman, Do you have this book?
Yup! And I love it! Pages are all sticky...
But seriously, I really like to read the info in it about any new CC I try. I ordered it from Hinds in Toronto, about 125 CAD. They're website is under construction right now but you can reach them at these coordinates :
LOL. The reason I ask is that these forums don't really lend a lot to the person who is posting, namely, you don't know the experience of the person giving advice. I have read most of the past postings of people here that I feel are contribute something of positive substance. I have read a lot of yours. So I was just curious. I do not in fact have the book, but do have access to a copy through a fellow cigar lover.
"It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life"
Posts: 1101 | Location: Indianapolis | Registered: January 07, 2007
Another book that I think of as a complement to the MRN book is Charles Del Todesco's The Havana Cigar. (Yes, I do own it.) It was published in 1996 so it is a bit dated. The information on tobacco growing and curing, etc. is top notch. Another one I've been reading is Adriano Martinez Rius's The Great Habano Factories. Outstanding information on the factories, brands, labels, etc. Rius was the "consultant" to the MRN book.
Posts: 299 | Location: Paris | Registered: November 19, 2003
I just picked up Min Ron Nee's book last week. It's extremely comprehensive, however, costly (at least to me). I ended up paying over $100 for it. After reading up a little bit I def felt it's worth the cash. My 2 cents.
I like "Cultivating a Tradition of Perfection" which is published by Habanos. As such, it's far from unbiased, but it does offer some great photos, a narartive that follows production from seed to finished cigar, as well as a fold-out poster of every vitola Habanos is capable of producing (with the exception of some of the newer large ring gauge sizes). You should be able to find it on eBay or through various Canadian or European cigar merchants.
NEE's book is the most expensive. It has full-sized photographs of virtually every Cuban cigar produced by post-Revolution Cuba. It contains the author's "tasting notes" for what they are worth.
Del Todesco's book is, as mentioned, outdated in terms of what cigars it includes. It has great pictures of Cuba and the cigar-making process contains an exhaustive explaination of how Cuban cigars are made -- information that is totally lacking from NEE's book.
Perelman's is the most up-to-date, and it is more comprehensive than NEE. It is only about $13.00 at retail. But it is small, paperback volume with comparatively fewer photos. It contains a couple of pages of references to other excellent books on the topic.
The Chase/Habanos version is about $15.00 retail and, as someone mentioned, comes with a fold-out chart listing all of the the-current production Cuban cigars as well as a ring guage measuring card.
If I could keep only one of them as a reference source, I guess it would be Perelman's for price plus fairly current and comprehensive information. But I would not want to part with any of them from my library.
Posts: 4229 | Location: Virginia Beach, VA | Registered: July 18, 2002
Perelman's is available at amazon.com. A while ago they were sending it free to people who subscribed to the e-newsletter. That might still be the case.
For the NEE book, the first place I would try is the USA distributor of the second printing sjohnson at armadallc dot us is his email address. If he no longer has any, I hear Cigars International is still offering them.
Posts: 4229 | Location: Virginia Beach, VA | Registered: July 18, 2002
I've got one that I haven't opened and is in the box it was shipped in. The author's behavior that is being displayed on the internet has made me lose interest in the content of the book. I'm going to see if the local library wants it, if they don't, it's going the be offered up on eBay.
Originally posted by isomherf: I've got one that I haven't opened and is in the box it was shipped in. The author's behavior that is being displayed on the internet has made me lose interest in the content of the book. I'm going to see if the local library wants it, if they don't, it's going the be offered up on eBay.
how can people be so sure that this person on the internet is the author?
Originally posted by isomherf: I've got one that I haven't opened and is in the box it was shipped in. The author's behavior that is being displayed on the internet has made me lose interest in the content of the book. I'm going to see if the local library wants it, if they don't, it's going the be offered up on eBay.
How subtle. The author's behavior on the internet how funny considering the source.
If ignorance is bliss .............. Why aren't there more happy people walking around?
