Rather than fighting the crowds or endlessly refreshing for online deals today, may we gently suggest getting out in nature if you can and then curling up with a good book, preferably from the library or your favorite independent bookstore? Why not pick up one of these often darkly funny novels about the soul-sucking world of big retail and shopping malls?
Descriptions in quotes are from the library catalog unless otherwise noted.
Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman
“A group of misfit, big-box store employees working the overnight shift in a small upstate New York town vie for the stability, salary and possibility of a new job when their store manager announces he is leaving,” and attempt to band together to influence the choice of his replacement.
Ladies’ Paradise by Émile Zola
Also known as Au Bonheur Des Dames and The Ladies’ Delight (you’ll find it in different formats depending on which title you search), this book, set at an eponymous department store in 19th century Paris, deals with surprisingly timely themes of sexual harassment, office politics and big shops putting small ones out of business by undercutting prices. “Charting the beginnings of the capitalist economy and bourgeois society, Zola captures in lavish detail the greedy customers and gossiping staff, and the obsession with image, fashion and gratification that was a phenomenon of nineteenth-century French consumer society.” Also, it’s “the only book by Zola that won’t make you want to cry yourself to sleep thinking about how much humans suck.” (Buzzfeed) It was also made into the BBC miniseries “The Paradise,” available from the library streaming or on DVD.
The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland
(Not in OPL, but available through Link+, and Coupland is always worth tracking down)
“The first and only story of love and looming apocalypse set in the aisles of an office supply superstore.” (Goodreads) “Over the course of several months, two retail workers at an office supply superstore–Roger, a divorced, middle aged ‘aisles associate’ at Staples, and his young co-worker, Bethany, an early twenty-something, former Goth–strike up a unique epistolary friendship.”
Supersaurio by Meryem El Mehdati
“An uproarious debut novel about a young woman from the Canary Islands whose internship with a supermarket chain reveals the soul-crushing vagaries of modern life.”
Finna by Nino Cipri
“When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store — but not that one — slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees (who recently broke up with each other) to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line.”
Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
“After strange things start happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, three employees volunteer to work an overnight shift to investigate, but what they discover is more horrifying than they could have imagined.” The book is set up like an IKEA catalog, “complete with product illustrations, a home delivery order form and a map of Orsk’s labyrinthine showroom.”
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Several of the short stories in this collection deal with “the horrors of consumerism and the toll it takes on us all.” “The titular story…(and its linked stories “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing” and “In Retail”) transport the reader to an outerwear store at the fictional Prominent Mall.” (Ploughshares)
Friends of Montclair Library 