Fashion. Food Courts. Lingerie. Fire Bombing. Suicide. Free Parking. Welcome to the Mall. Why would one woman threaten to kill another for a pair of discounted shoes? Why are cross-dressers drawn to mall car parks? What do impulse buys have to do with rioting? And why are market research companies hiding the truth from us? From one of the UK s most acclaimed literary and media talents, Tales From The Mall, is a mash-up of fiction, essays and true stories, that tells the rise of the most iconic symbol of our modern age the shopping mall. From over a hundred interviews and confessions, Morrison re-tells the true-life tales of those who work, shop and even find love inside their walls. With wry wit, insight and compassion, Morrison uncovers the secrets of retail heaven and hell, to reveal how malls manipulate our emotions in cleverly calculated ways, how they are an ideal space to meet a new lover or to kill yourself and how they are taking over the world. A startling window on our time, to make you think, fear and laugh. Retail will never be therapy again.
Tales From The Mall
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Tales From the Mall is a great book. It s touching and emotional and part of a new form of literary storytelling. It s worth reading, worth loving. --James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces
Ewan Morrison captures beautifully the point at which anecdote becomes urban myth and reportage slides into fiction. This feels like a really important step towards a literature of the 21st century. --Claire Armistead, Books Editor, The Guardian
Morrison continues Ballard's tradition of locating menace beneath the sleekness and shine of postindustrial life. You also learn a lot along the way. A truly interesting book. --Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X
Ewan Morrison captures beautifully the point at which anecdote becomes urban myth and reportage slides into fiction. This feels like a really important step towards a literature of the 21st century. --Claire Armistead, Books Editor, The Guardian
Morrison continues Ballard's tradition of locating menace beneath the sleekness and shine of postindustrial life. You also learn a lot along the way. A truly interesting book. --Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X
About the Author
Ewan Morrison is the acclaimed author of Swung, Menage, Distance and The Last Book You Read. He is a BAFTA award nominated filmmaker and lives in Glasgow.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By lochbroom
Format:Paperback
Tales from the Mall is brilliant. Ewan Morrison opens your eyes to all that is scary, sad and funny about malls by using fact and fiction in such an innovative way. Who would have thought that a book about malls could captivate and enthral? But it does -and I loved it. I had first of all bought it on Kindle but I've also bought it as a proper book. How else can you thrust Tales from the Mall at someone and say `you must read this'? Ewan Morrison is one of the most exciting writers in Scotland today and Tales from the Mall is one of the stand-out books of 2012.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
At last Ewan Morrison has written another book. I've been waiting for ages. This is not a novel, it is a book of short stories, or incidents that happen in, or involving a mall. There are also essays and short chapters of facts about malls and mall shopping, which certainly don't bore you, they really get you thinking. This is a great book and to be basic and honest I wanted to keep turning the page, I wanted more when it had finished. The short stories were uniquely entertaining, cringing and sad. The facts about us shoppers and malls, the stats, the psychology of what makes us tick in a mall, what makes us buy, is rather frightening, like we've been had, like we are so predictable. It really does get you going. I really enjoyed reading this book; I just hope we can get another one soon from this Scottish Writer. I don't want to wait too long!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ewan Morrison's Tales From The Mall is a charming & engaging anthology of stories, anecdotes & information about malls & mall culture. Far from being the soulless temples to consumerism he has discovered the beating heart of their existance in the first-hand accounts from the staff & customers.
Written mainly in the vernacular (a favourite Glasgow word for describing "the way it was telt"), Morrison has touched on the hundreds of lives & situations that populate mall culture, and how, in turn the mall has touched it's denizens, from cleaners to customers. Far from the vacant, emotionless space we think of as a Mall, Morrison explores the personal stories of those living their lives through its existence. From the wryly amusing to the near tragedy of a suicide attempt averted, this cross-continental cross-section of Americana that coats the world has been given a more understanding & sympathetic voice.
Interspersed by these narratives are the "mall-facts": The history & the psychology (pathology surely?) behind the mall concept : how millions have been spent in the study of consumer manipulation to exploit customers & their weaknesses; how the mall has developed & devolved through exploration of the rising phenomenon of the dead mall.
This dichotamy (I love that word) between the cynicism of the corporations that run the malls & those that frequent them is highlighted in Morrisson's wry, unsentimental but engaging & poingnant thoughtfest that is Tales From The Mall.
Written mainly in the vernacular (a favourite Glasgow word for describing "the way it was telt"), Morrison has touched on the hundreds of lives & situations that populate mall culture, and how, in turn the mall has touched it's denizens, from cleaners to customers. Far from the vacant, emotionless space we think of as a Mall, Morrison explores the personal stories of those living their lives through its existence. From the wryly amusing to the near tragedy of a suicide attempt averted, this cross-continental cross-section of Americana that coats the world has been given a more understanding & sympathetic voice.
Interspersed by these narratives are the "mall-facts": The history & the psychology (pathology surely?) behind the mall concept : how millions have been spent in the study of consumer manipulation to exploit customers & their weaknesses; how the mall has developed & devolved through exploration of the rising phenomenon of the dead mall.
This dichotamy (I love that word) between the cynicism of the corporations that run the malls & those that frequent them is highlighted in Morrisson's wry, unsentimental but engaging & poingnant thoughtfest that is Tales From The Mall.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thought-provoking read
I loved this book more than I expected to. I started reading before bed and next thing I knew I had read the entire book and it was after 4 in the morning. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Rhona Hamilton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Peeling back the brands to find the human stories beneath
Most books that examine the `consumer society' tend to come tied down by some fairly heavy academic or intellectual baggage: weighty sociology, cultural criticism drowned in... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Dale Lately
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tales From The Mall
The mixture of factual analyisis and narrative did not quite work for me. The information presented was interesting but would have benefitted from a more structured approach. Read more
Published 4 months ago by jac
4.0 out of 5 stars
Two books in one
I stuck to the task of reading this book in chronological order without skipping from fact to fact, or story to story. Read more
Published 8 months ago by jannert
5.0 out of 5 stars
A change in direction but not in quality
Tales from the Mall continues Ewan Morrison's panache for writing tales of modern love and life without judgement but this new title not only plays with what the structure of a... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mr. J. Baker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read this if you love literature and hate capitalism
Funny, perceptive, angry, post-apocalyptic: Tales from the Mall pushes literature to its limits and comes out singing. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Helen Finch
1.0 out of 5 stars
Impressive if you can't read
I have often wondered what it is about Ewan Morrison that manages to attract so many first time reviewers who stop by, leave five star reviews, and then don't pop back onto Amazon... Read more
Published 8 months ago by MisterHobgoblin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Always one to watch
I really enjoyed Morrison's last book Menage but this is really quite a switch for him. He has become something of a cultural commentator these days mainly on digital media but it... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Buck Mulligan
4.0 out of 5 stars
Forget what you thought you knew about novels.
'Tales from the Mall' is a rare book. In a world where demographics and algorithms seem to define what we as consumers apparently want Ewan Morrison has managed to highlight where... Read more
Published 8 months ago by C.L.Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent read.
Tales From the Mall is an excellent read, working together fiction with non-fiction in a way that is utterly compelling, thoughtful, and informative. Read more
Published 9 months ago by amccrmck
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