Review
Every once in a while a book comes along that takes your breath
away.
What Was Lost is such a book. Catherine O'Flynn's stunning first
novel contemplates the loss of innocence and the dullness of modern life. A
simple story about two people's investigation of a young girl's mysterious
disappearance grows into a larger rumination on modernity, maturation, and love
under O'Flynn's deft and empathetic pen. The novel is divided into two main
narratives: Ten-year-old Kate Meaney's life as a detective and Lisa and Kurt's
experiences at Green Oaks shopping mall in 2004, two decades later. The two
narratives mirror each other in theme and action, and the result is an artfully
constructed and interesting whole.
Kate Meaney wants to be a detective. She enlists the help of her friend Mickey,
a stuffed monkey, and begins to look for crime in her...
Beyond the Book
Shopping Malls
A shopping mall is defined as a collection of shops usually in one main building
or close series of buildings. It would seem that shopping malls date back to at
least the 10th century when it is said that
Isfahan's Grand Bazaar in Iran was founded (the current buildings date to
the 17th century).
The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey was built in the 15th century and is
still one of the biggest covered markets in the world.
In the Western world, modern-day shopping malls trace their roots to the
mid-19th Century covered rows of shops known as arcades, such as the
Royal Opera Arcade (Britain's oldest built in 1818) which was closely
followed by others such as the more famous
Burlington Arcade
which opened in London in 1819....
