Pipe Quotes from The Luminaries

I almost always smoke my pipe with a book in hand. My usual smoking location is a shed at the back of our yard so I don't get disturbed by anything. I came across some wonderful pipe smoking quotes reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton that I thought I would share. At over 800 pages it is a sizable book. Often I am not interested, or don't like, the Man Booker prize winners but this book with its pace, story, and characters is easily the best book (of about 50) I have read this year. Don't get me wrong I love a good page turning mystery or action thriller but I have usually forgotten most of it by the time I open the next book. The pace of The Luminaries is much like pipe smoking itself, not in a rush to get somewhere, just happy to be where it is.
The book is set in 1866 in New Zealand.

'I know you of course', Shepard replied, taking the chair that was offered him. Seeing that Nilssen's pipe was lit, he reached in his pocket for his own, Nilssen passed his tobacco pouch and lucifers across the desk, and there was a short pause as Shepard filled and tamped his bowl and struck a match. His pipe was shallow, made of briar, with a smart collar of amber set between the bit and the stem. He puffed several times until he was satisfied the leaf was lit, and then sat back in his chair with a calculated glance first to his left and then to his right, as if he wished to square himself with the planes of the room.

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If only the first time you meet with someone today you start by sharing tobacco and setting up your pipe!
A few pages later

Nilssen's pipe had gone out. He rapt the bowl against his desktop to empty the ash and then began to refill it. 'I believe Alistar Lauderback means to make a change' he said, unlacing the strings of his tobacco pouch with his free hand. 'If he is elected, of course'.
Shepard did not answer at once. 'You've been following the campaign?'
Nilssen busy with his pouch, did not notice the other man's hesitation... The absorbing rituals that attended the filling of his pipe – the worn thinness of the leather strings, the dry spice of the tobacco – had restored a kind of order to his senses. ...

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That sounds very interesting Jarit. What a shame it has not been translated yet. Mind you I have yet to tackle Ulysses yet so I have some time before I need a translation! Plenty of mystery books are being translated from that part of the world but I am yet to bump into a Finnish one.