July Book Club - Big Mall

Book club starts at 7:00PM inside of Magpie Books. We will provide light refreshments. Masks encouraged.

A phenomenology of the mall: If the mall makes us feel bad, why do we keep going back? In a world poisoned by capitalism, is shopping what makes life worth living?

Kate Black grew up in West Edmonton Mall – a mall on steroids, notorious for its indoor waterpark, deadly roller coaster, and controversial dolphin shows. But everyone has a favourite mall, or a mall that is their own personal memory palace. It's a place people love to hate and hate to love – a site of pleasure and pain, of death and violence, of (sub)urban legend.

Blending a history of shopping with a story of coming of age in North America's largest and strangest mall, Big Mall investigates how these structures have become the ultimate symbol of late-capitalist dread – and, surprisingly, a subversive site of hope.

Kate Black's essays have been published in The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and Maisonneuve . In 2020, she was selected as one of Canada's top emerging voices in non-fiction by the RBC Taylor Prize and the National Magazine Awards. She grew up in Alberta, and lives in Vancouver.

PARKING & ACCESSIBILITY

Magpie Books is located at 9553 76 Ave. in Edmonton. There is ample street parking available in front of the bookshop along 76 Avenue but the store is also accessible by transit via ETS routes 501, 523, and 525.

There is one gender neutral, physically accessible, single-stall washroom inside the shop with a sink and hand dryer.

For any other accessibility-related inquiries, please email us at [email protected].

Host or Publisher Magpie Books