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Car Park Life
‘I have stood in the psychedelic plains of Patagonia, thumb out in the hope of a passing vehicle; I have walked through a smoking lava flow in Iceland; but here on the central barrier of the concrete access ramp to Herne Bay’s rooftop Morrisons, I am a true pioneer.’
Car parks: commonplace urban landscapes, little-explored and rarely featured in art and music, yet they shape the aesthetics of our towns and cities. Hotspots for crime, rage and sexual deviancy; a blind spot in which activities go unnoticed. Skateboarding, car stunts, drug dealing, dogging, murder.
Gareth E. Rees believes that the retail car park has as much mystery, magic and terror as any mountain, meadow or wood. He’s out to prove it by walking the car parks of Britain, journeying across the country from Plymouth to Edinburgh, much to the horror of his family, friends – and, most of all – himself. He finds Sir Francis Drake outside B&Q, standing stones in a retail park, and a dead body beside Sainsbury’s.
In this darkly satirical work of non-fiction, Gareth E. Rees presents a troubling vision of Brexit Britain through a common space we know far less about than we think.
Car parks: commonplace urban landscapes, little-explored and rarely featured in art and music, yet they shape the aesthetics of our towns and cities. Hotspots for crime, rage and sexual deviancy; a blind spot in which activities go unnoticed. Skateboarding, car stunts, drug dealing, dogging, murder.
Gareth E. Rees believes that the retail car park has as much mystery, magic and terror as any mountain, meadow or wood. He’s out to prove it by walking the car parks of Britain, journeying across the country from Plymouth to Edinburgh, much to the horror of his family, friends – and, most of all – himself. He finds Sir Francis Drake outside B&Q, standing stones in a retail park, and a dead body beside Sainsbury’s.
In this darkly satirical work of non-fiction, Gareth E. Rees presents a troubling vision of Brexit Britain through a common space we know far less about than we think.
240 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2019
7 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Gareth E. Rees
12 books52 followersGareth E. Rees is a writer of fiction and non fiction. His books include Sunken Lands (Elliott & Thompson 2024), Terminal Zones (Influx Press 2022), Unofficial Britain (Elliott & Thompson, 2020), Car Park Life (Influx Press 2019), The Stone Tide (Influx Press, 2018). His first book 'Marshland' was reissued in 2024 by Influx Press in a new expanded edition.
‘What he seeks out is the magical in the mundane, the bizarre happenings in plain sight’
- Deborah Moggach, The Times
‘What he seeks out is the magical in the mundane, the bizarre happenings in plain sight’
- Deborah Moggach, The Times
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October 19, 2020Occasionally I follow recommendations by litfic / Modern Writing types and it always leads me to things like "man rambles around car parks talking about psychogeography and the collapse of his marriage". One day I will learn.
December 15, 2025
An unconvincing exploration of that most popular of liminal spaces—the supermarket car park. Rees’s attempt to excavate the surreal, the uncanny, and the dark truths of Brexit Britain through the medium of car parks is a spirited and valiant stab, although as the quest becomes more the tale of one man’s bizarre obsession, and the strain of turning this obsession into a compelling Sebaldian narrative, and the impact this obsession has on an indifferent wife and children, the former of which is lost in the process, the book loses focus and the mission becomes laboured. The end product is a mishmash of unwanted descriptions of selected Morrisons’ car parks, meandering essays in the psychogeography mode, and honest reflections on the futility of his own endeavor. Rees’s writing is engaging, vivid, and witty, and the stark B&W photography between chapters is a nice touch, so every car park aficionado should nest a copy in their glove compartments at once, regardless of the grouchiness of my verdict.
August 11, 2019
Car Park Life is a book about car parks. Not any old car parks, but the car parks found with supermarkets and other chain stores in retail parks. Yes, really. After something of an epiphany in a Morrison's car park that car parks might be something more than they seem, Rees sets on a journey to explore car parks, on foot, and look at the landscapes we ignore, battle for spaces in, and dash across. There's litter, wildlife, dodgy deals, fights, and a whole lot more, as Rees travels through car parks and also highlights the strangest news stories about them.
In its essence, this is very readable psychogeography combined with Brexit and capitalist horror, all covered in a wry and mocking veneer. Rees knows he's just walking around car parks looking for meaning, but that doesn't stop him doing it. The book is strangely fascinating, even to someone (like me) who doesn't drive, and for whom car parks are always approached on foot. At times you might think 'oh, another Sainsbury's car park, fascinating', but actually that feels like the point: these places should be so mundane, but so many things—sex, drugs, violence—happen in car parks. The ending brings together a bit of the environmental future with the fact that looking at car parks raises more questions than it answers, and leaves the reader open to taking what they want from it: an amusing tale of obsession, a chance to muse on what a landscape feature says about capitalism, or a bleak look at the country.
Part story of a weird obsession, part look at neoliberalism and capitalism through a psychogeography lens, and part satirical image of modern Britain, this is a book that forces you to think about car parks and why so many strange things happen in them. And it can't help but make you think about the major car parks in your life, too.
In its essence, this is very readable psychogeography combined with Brexit and capitalist horror, all covered in a wry and mocking veneer. Rees knows he's just walking around car parks looking for meaning, but that doesn't stop him doing it. The book is strangely fascinating, even to someone (like me) who doesn't drive, and for whom car parks are always approached on foot. At times you might think 'oh, another Sainsbury's car park, fascinating', but actually that feels like the point: these places should be so mundane, but so many things—sex, drugs, violence—happen in car parks. The ending brings together a bit of the environmental future with the fact that looking at car parks raises more questions than it answers, and leaves the reader open to taking what they want from it: an amusing tale of obsession, a chance to muse on what a landscape feature says about capitalism, or a bleak look at the country.
Part story of a weird obsession, part look at neoliberalism and capitalism through a psychogeography lens, and part satirical image of modern Britain, this is a book that forces you to think about car parks and why so many strange things happen in them. And it can't help but make you think about the major car parks in your life, too.
December 25, 2019
“I realise that a car park can have as much mystery and magic as a mountain, meadow or lakeside. When we hurry through them with groceries on our mind they may look indistinguishable, but like a second-hand book where the previous owner has scrawled notes in the margins, they are full of intriguing human detail. Examine them closely and they come to life.”
OK so you don’t have to be a middle-aged British man who grew up in the 80s to read and enjoy this, but it probably helps. He gets it. This guy really gets it. To say I loved this book hardly begins to cover it. If I ever came across him I‘d have to give him a big hug and thank him, but instead of silly unlikely scenarios, I will just settle for thanking him with a positive review. This was one of those books where I was compelled to send quotes electronically to my best mate in another country and we both got over excited at reading of a kindred soul and his unique travels!
“The territories that excite me are the overlooked, mundane places in which I find myself far more often than bucolic idylls. Scrapyards, alleyways, canals, railway sidings, service stations and shopping centres fuel my imagination.”
I always have a soft spot for those who dance to a slightly different beat, and Rees shimmies off into all sorts of off-beat situations. It is all about those overlooked places, the spaces between, a philosophy and outlook that I couldn’t agree more with. I love the way his prose shifts seamlessly from the profound reverie of immersing himself in various Ballardian landscapes to languishing in the long, dark teatime of the soul of his agonising marriage break-up.
“The iguanodon was a herbivore which, in my childhood dinosaur books, was usually getting savaged by an Allosaurus, so I was never a fan, but you get the dinosaurs you deserve and the Iguanodon is a very British beast: a duck-faced victim with a herd mentality and spiky thumbs aloft, like Paul McCartney’s, to give the illusion that everything is fine.”
In many ways this shouldn’t work at all, but it is the unorthodox and self-examining nature of it which makes it stand out so well, this is a rambling, shambling treat of a book, so kudos to the publishers for having the self-conviction to publish it. I cannot wait to get a hold of his other books, I may well have read a better book published in 2019, but if I have I certainly can’t name it…
“The problem has always been that hills don’t interest me as much as streets. Trees not as much as pylons. Foliage not as much as litter. It’s an issue, I know. I’m not proud. But Dan is wrong to worry about me being disappointed. I’ve changed. Or rather, I have been changed. Ever since my Morrisons night-walks and the journey into the Makro of my childhood, I’ve been infected with a virulent form of enthusiasm, similar to that which must motivate the trainspotter, in which the reward synapses in my brain go into overdrive when I discover even the tiniest micro detail of interest-a lost umbrella, a poorly punctuated piece of graffiti, a glimpsed weed deal, a mysterious arrow painted on a drain cover, a man crying in a Vauxhall Astra.”
October 21, 2019
“For me, the true discovery is rarely the place itself – a location on a map or a building – but in understanding empirically that there are worlds hidden in plain sight, which can become visible if we bother to lift our veils and see the Britain that is, not an idealised Britain that never was.”
Between 2015 and 2018, Gareth E. Rees travelled the length and breadth of Britain visiting retail car parks. His fascination with these spaces began in Hastings, outside his local Morrisons supermarket, where he noticed the variety of activities taking place unregarded by busy shoppers. He decided to explore, especially around the edges of design decisions and consumer behaviour. He recognised that his fascination was perhaps as deviant as many of the exploits beheld.
“The problem has always been that hills don’t interest me as much as streets. Trees not as much as pylons. Foliage not as much as litter. It’s an issue, I know. I’m not proud.”
Divided into chapters that are bookended by photographs the author took on his travels, many details shared are of the ordinary but depicted in ways few readers may have considered. There are musings on people’s actions – their attitudes – and the window this offers on modern societal thinking. The author is not averse to mocking himself.
From his vantage point in the car park, Rees considers the architecture of various outlets. He observes how heritage buildings have been recommissioned – sterilised yet presented as somehow authentic. This neatening for consumers and tourists – the refreshing of blackened walls that once contained widespread misery – reflects how history is often remembered.
“In this country we prefer to dwell among facsimiles and facades, reassured by the convenient lie of the past.”
Activities in car parks include: drug deals, road rage, petrolhead races, sexual pursuits. People scurrying between shops and their cars – rushing to park and then to leave – cannot help but display their animal instincts. They compete for ownership, control and supremacy. They are suspicious of Rees for not behaving as expected.
Given the subject matter, the writing is inexplicably funny (kudos to the author). I particularly enjoyed the chapter titled The Ancestor which is set around Amesbury. Whilst providing an amusing potted history of the place, it hones in on ways in which we attempt to acknowledge and celebrate past events. This is observation rather than overt criticism.
In a chapter titled The Joy of Parking, Rees considers why vast retail car parks came to be provided and now themselves prove a draw to their users.
“Experience the joy of 7,000 free parking spaces.”
“Although I’ll admit that there is some ambiguity in the statement. Does the joy come from parking free of charge, or from the knowledge that 7,000 parking spaces are freely available?”
“I will enjoy their parking spaces without parking and without rewarding them with a purchase for their efforts. I won’t even sneak inside to buy a sandwich. It’s everything they don’t want. I’m an aberration, a freeloader”
There have been many books in recent years that draw attention to issues which make their authors despair of the choices others make that they disagree with. Rees mentions current affairs that worry and depress him but there is no hectoring. Rather these are personal, humble reflections offering a wider, longer term view.
The self-deprecating musings wrap around witty yet piercing insights on behaviours that may be frowned upon if considered – mostly they go unnoticed by those caught up in their own concerns. The news site stories quoted are shocking if unsurprising. Dangers lurk while people pass by unaware.
A poignant yet entertaining story about an urban adventurer and the discoveries he makes, including the many ways in which people break the rules in these widely frequented public spaces. Retail car parks and their margins will now be viewed through a recalibrated lens. Compelling, original and highly recommended.
Between 2015 and 2018, Gareth E. Rees travelled the length and breadth of Britain visiting retail car parks. His fascination with these spaces began in Hastings, outside his local Morrisons supermarket, where he noticed the variety of activities taking place unregarded by busy shoppers. He decided to explore, especially around the edges of design decisions and consumer behaviour. He recognised that his fascination was perhaps as deviant as many of the exploits beheld.
“The problem has always been that hills don’t interest me as much as streets. Trees not as much as pylons. Foliage not as much as litter. It’s an issue, I know. I’m not proud.”
Divided into chapters that are bookended by photographs the author took on his travels, many details shared are of the ordinary but depicted in ways few readers may have considered. There are musings on people’s actions – their attitudes – and the window this offers on modern societal thinking. The author is not averse to mocking himself.
From his vantage point in the car park, Rees considers the architecture of various outlets. He observes how heritage buildings have been recommissioned – sterilised yet presented as somehow authentic. This neatening for consumers and tourists – the refreshing of blackened walls that once contained widespread misery – reflects how history is often remembered.
“In this country we prefer to dwell among facsimiles and facades, reassured by the convenient lie of the past.”
Activities in car parks include: drug deals, road rage, petrolhead races, sexual pursuits. People scurrying between shops and their cars – rushing to park and then to leave – cannot help but display their animal instincts. They compete for ownership, control and supremacy. They are suspicious of Rees for not behaving as expected.
Given the subject matter, the writing is inexplicably funny (kudos to the author). I particularly enjoyed the chapter titled The Ancestor which is set around Amesbury. Whilst providing an amusing potted history of the place, it hones in on ways in which we attempt to acknowledge and celebrate past events. This is observation rather than overt criticism.
In a chapter titled The Joy of Parking, Rees considers why vast retail car parks came to be provided and now themselves prove a draw to their users.
“Experience the joy of 7,000 free parking spaces.”
“Although I’ll admit that there is some ambiguity in the statement. Does the joy come from parking free of charge, or from the knowledge that 7,000 parking spaces are freely available?”
“I will enjoy their parking spaces without parking and without rewarding them with a purchase for their efforts. I won’t even sneak inside to buy a sandwich. It’s everything they don’t want. I’m an aberration, a freeloader”
There have been many books in recent years that draw attention to issues which make their authors despair of the choices others make that they disagree with. Rees mentions current affairs that worry and depress him but there is no hectoring. Rather these are personal, humble reflections offering a wider, longer term view.
The self-deprecating musings wrap around witty yet piercing insights on behaviours that may be frowned upon if considered – mostly they go unnoticed by those caught up in their own concerns. The news site stories quoted are shocking if unsurprising. Dangers lurk while people pass by unaware.
A poignant yet entertaining story about an urban adventurer and the discoveries he makes, including the many ways in which people break the rules in these widely frequented public spaces. Retail car parks and their margins will now be viewed through a recalibrated lens. Compelling, original and highly recommended.
August 9, 2020
An iffy recommend in the ST. The secret life of car parks and how they affect our lives. Dead bodies, late-night racing, assassinations, divorce. All life is here. Runs out of sparkle though.
January 19, 2025
Ergens op internet maakte William Gibson een opmerking over A Natural History of Empty Lots, een boek dat me wel interessant leek. Meerdere mensen reageerden daarop door enthousiast Car Park Life aan te bevelen. Ik besloot ze allebei te kopen.
Bij dit boek kwam ik tot blz. 176. Daar meldt de auteur - een of andere broodschrijver die een hele rits non-fictie boeken op zijn naam heeft staan - dat hij liever in een hotel slaapt dan in een guest house, omdat hij niet geïnteresseerd is in de oninteressante persoonlijk preoccupaties van de eigenaar. Daar kon ik me wel in vinden. Het was ook een mooie samenvatting van mijn bezwaar tegen dit boek.
Het is vlot geschreven en bestaat uit prettig korte hoofdstukjes, maar dit boek is een repeterende opsomming van persoonlijke en voor-de-hand-liggende observaties die uiteindelijk niet interessant of grappig genoeg zijn om te bevredigen. Het is gewoon te niksig. Te leeg. (Voeg hier uw eigen flauwe grap over parkeerterreinen in.) Ik was in eerste instantie van plan het uit te lezen om op schema te blijven met mijn Reading Challenge maar bedacht nu pas dat ook niet uitgelezen boeken meegerekend worden. En dat gaat nog sneller ook! Nu maar hopen dat het boek van (snor alert!:) Christopher Brown wel interessant is.
Bij dit boek kwam ik tot blz. 176. Daar meldt de auteur - een of andere broodschrijver die een hele rits non-fictie boeken op zijn naam heeft staan - dat hij liever in een hotel slaapt dan in een guest house, omdat hij niet geïnteresseerd is in de oninteressante persoonlijk preoccupaties van de eigenaar. Daar kon ik me wel in vinden. Het was ook een mooie samenvatting van mijn bezwaar tegen dit boek.
Het is vlot geschreven en bestaat uit prettig korte hoofdstukjes, maar dit boek is een repeterende opsomming van persoonlijke en voor-de-hand-liggende observaties die uiteindelijk niet interessant of grappig genoeg zijn om te bevredigen. Het is gewoon te niksig. Te leeg. (Voeg hier uw eigen flauwe grap over parkeerterreinen in.) Ik was in eerste instantie van plan het uit te lezen om op schema te blijven met mijn Reading Challenge maar bedacht nu pas dat ook niet uitgelezen boeken meegerekend worden. En dat gaat nog sneller ook! Nu maar hopen dat het boek van (snor alert!:) Christopher Brown wel interessant is.
October 10, 2019
The premise of this book - a tour of the retail car parks of Brexit Britain - made me think of the similarly tedious-sounding Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortazar and Carol Dunlop (a 1970s month-long drive from Paris to Marseilles, in which the authors visit every Motorway rest area on the way, at a rate of two per day). Like that book, whose authors pretend that their VW Camper Van is in fact a dragon, Rees occasionally spices up his car park descriptions with outrageous fantasies. But, to my surprise, this fabulation really wasn't necessary (and if anything detracted slightly from the book), there really is a lot to talk about, and an infinite variety, in the car parks of Britain's supermarkets, retail parks, and chain hotels.
Each short chapter tackles a different car park and a different theme, from the different part of the car park to their locations, the things they are built on top of, the unauthorised things which go on within them, the litter and nature skulking around their edges, and most sinisterly the astounding range of crimes committed within them (a surprising number of which go unpunished - you are never more anonymous than when you're in a large car park, CCTV or no CCTV). Threaded through the book are short, sharp series of facts and figures, plus details of the unravelling of the author's personal life (some of which will be familiar to readers of his earlier books).
I expected to be at least a little bored by this book, but was surprised to find it compulsively readable.
Each short chapter tackles a different car park and a different theme, from the different part of the car park to their locations, the things they are built on top of, the unauthorised things which go on within them, the litter and nature skulking around their edges, and most sinisterly the astounding range of crimes committed within them (a surprising number of which go unpunished - you are never more anonymous than when you're in a large car park, CCTV or no CCTV). Threaded through the book are short, sharp series of facts and figures, plus details of the unravelling of the author's personal life (some of which will be familiar to readers of his earlier books).
I expected to be at least a little bored by this book, but was surprised to find it compulsively readable.
February 21, 2022
Unofficial Britain was one of my favourite books of the last couple of years - partly because it was such a surprise. So, I had to add Car Park Life to my Christmas List and it duly arrived.
This book was written first and follows the author as he investigates the bland, ubiquitous supermarket and retail park car parks that are dotted around every town and city in the UK. He discusses the people using them - the boy racers, drug dealers, and those with nowhere else to hang out. He visits a car park with a nature reserve on the side, looks at the signs and follows old streams and structures. He even, much to the dismay of his family, revisits the Makro car park of his childhood.
It is an interesting book, but I think that the author set himself limits that were a bit too narrow and perhaps it could have been more interesting if it included some other genres of car park (although the author does set out why he set such a limit). I felt there was too much about the author and his marriage and not enough about the car parks. But, then I am perhaps being too harsh, because in my mind I was comparing this book to Unofficial Britain which had a broader scope and, I think, showed a much better writing style.
Still very enjoyable though, and one I would recommend to people in the UK who would like to read something a bit different.
This book was written first and follows the author as he investigates the bland, ubiquitous supermarket and retail park car parks that are dotted around every town and city in the UK. He discusses the people using them - the boy racers, drug dealers, and those with nowhere else to hang out. He visits a car park with a nature reserve on the side, looks at the signs and follows old streams and structures. He even, much to the dismay of his family, revisits the Makro car park of his childhood.
It is an interesting book, but I think that the author set himself limits that were a bit too narrow and perhaps it could have been more interesting if it included some other genres of car park (although the author does set out why he set such a limit). I felt there was too much about the author and his marriage and not enough about the car parks. But, then I am perhaps being too harsh, because in my mind I was comparing this book to Unofficial Britain which had a broader scope and, I think, showed a much better writing style.
Still very enjoyable though, and one I would recommend to people in the UK who would like to read something a bit different.
March 26, 2020
This title passed me by on some psychogeography list and I couldn't resist it. It is, undoubtedly, a book about car parks.
Actually, I had feared a contrived pile of nonsense but he does a more than respectable job of weaving a much wider narrative using retail car parks as his filter and theme. I do think he could have dropped a couple of chapters where it became too laboured for its own good, but I especially liked the chapter on 4WCOP, not least because I attended it the year after him. One of the cover reviews read "Knocks Psychogeography into the dustbin of history where it belongs" - it's pretty hard with a lot of stuff in this area to know just how seriously you need to take it.
3 is harsh. if you like car parks, 5 stars.
Actually, I had feared a contrived pile of nonsense but he does a more than respectable job of weaving a much wider narrative using retail car parks as his filter and theme. I do think he could have dropped a couple of chapters where it became too laboured for its own good, but I especially liked the chapter on 4WCOP, not least because I attended it the year after him. One of the cover reviews read "Knocks Psychogeography into the dustbin of history where it belongs" - it's pretty hard with a lot of stuff in this area to know just how seriously you need to take it.
3 is harsh. if you like car parks, 5 stars.
November 5, 2020
Car Park Life perfectly capsulates the aesthetic of towns and cities, Rees has ways of telling a story that entices the reader making any subject interesting. This novel illuminates the unusual parts of urban life that don't often get talked about from drug deals and stoners to petrol heads and doughnuts. Car parks are full of life we just don't realise it. Rees goes on a journey across the country from Plymouth to Edinburgh with his wife and kids in tow as he comes across the strangest of things in Britain's car parks. Rees has a very unusual outlook on life and it shines through in his novels and I think that's what I really enjoy about his books as well as his love for the simplicity of a Premier Inn as I completely agree.
April 15, 2020
Highly, highly recommend! It's funny, sad, and surprising. It shines a troubled light on spaces and people we overlook. It's like being woken up while sleepwalking and seeing the familiar in an unfamiliar, slightly disturbing way through another's eyes. The author's writing has a strong, lyrical pulse. This book stays with you in a unnerving grubby way. It's filled with intriguing history old and recent and inspires you to rethink and review the nature and boundaries of our common spaces. More to the point it's poignant and humorous and personal and strangely compelling. Thank you Gareth E. Rees!
October 16, 2023
I enjoyed what was more of a window onto one man's quirky interest than being dragged along on a Great Ticking Off Quest. There were those who appear to have felt dragged along, even though many of the visits were stop offs en route somewhere else... his children sounded rather disappointingly young to have entered such an uninterested phase already and much of the book is imbued with sadness about the state of his personal life, even though he picks himself up admirably, and the book is fun if you like your fun quiet. The sadness comes too, unsurprisingly, from the subject matter... litter, tragedies, tarmac.
January 18, 2020
A personal study of some of the hidden parts the UK's retail car parks. This is great, with exactly the right mix of wit, satire and underlying earnest. Rees mixes a beguiling and flowing combination of humour, psychology, sociology, autobiography and history around this unassuming topic. This book has definitely changed my perspective on car parks: I won't look past them in quite the same way again!
February 20, 2020
The major value of Car Park Life for the reader is the expansion of his attention span. In this era where busy is the new cool, this book is an invitation to notice. To enjoy the mundane, to notice the secondary, to give importance to the smallest move. Car-pe diem, in other words.
Read the full review on Slow Culture..
Read the full review on Slow Culture..
March 23, 2020
One of the weirder or stranger books that you may stumble across and something that only the English could produce.
A casual encounter with a supermarket car park after hours leads the author into the hidden life of these ubiquitous but invisible public spaces. Realising that after the shopping is done these spaces become the host to all kinds of surreptitious and dodgy activities like drug deals, burnouts, and bunkups.
This realisation leads to an obsession with the mythology and psychology of these modern arenas.
Freely admitted early on that this obsession will eventually lead to the loss of his marriage, his house, and some of his sanity, we are nonetheless invited to ride shotgun on this bizarre odyssey into the unknown territory that opens up when we question the seemingly ordinariness of this world in which we move, for the most part, like ghosts.
It would be nice to say that this book leads to insights and understandings of the modern world but in truth the fabric of the premise of this book disintegrates in sync with the authors life and grip on reality.
I admired his vulnerability.
As someone who has often sought the deeper meaning to superficial things and events, I could relate directly to this authors quest and also, sadly, to his unraveling.
Who wouldn’t want to know that there was more to this modern life than simply: consumerism, ill-disguised ignorance, a world where people seem unable to differentiate between opinions and facts?
Who doesn’t want a sense of mystery running through their lives?
A casual encounter with a supermarket car park after hours leads the author into the hidden life of these ubiquitous but invisible public spaces. Realising that after the shopping is done these spaces become the host to all kinds of surreptitious and dodgy activities like drug deals, burnouts, and bunkups.
This realisation leads to an obsession with the mythology and psychology of these modern arenas.
Freely admitted early on that this obsession will eventually lead to the loss of his marriage, his house, and some of his sanity, we are nonetheless invited to ride shotgun on this bizarre odyssey into the unknown territory that opens up when we question the seemingly ordinariness of this world in which we move, for the most part, like ghosts.
It would be nice to say that this book leads to insights and understandings of the modern world but in truth the fabric of the premise of this book disintegrates in sync with the authors life and grip on reality.
I admired his vulnerability.
As someone who has often sought the deeper meaning to superficial things and events, I could relate directly to this authors quest and also, sadly, to his unraveling.
Who wouldn’t want to know that there was more to this modern life than simply: consumerism, ill-disguised ignorance, a world where people seem unable to differentiate between opinions and facts?
Who doesn’t want a sense of mystery running through their lives?
March 22, 2020
I quite enjoy the maverick, in books, music and film, as long as they are 100% committed tp whatever the subject is. The same is true of this book, although it is more than tinged with sadness as the "real world" start to encroach into the "Car park world"
January 29, 2022
An enjoyable and easy read, typical Rees to bring to light the 'beauty' in the lesser appreciated zones of the British landscape, in this case the frequently (and often quite quickly) traversed car parks of Britain.
March 31, 2022
Really entertaining read. Especially the chapter on the Crownhill B&Q car park in Plymouth. I know it well as my office base was in the council building close by and often walked it’s perimeter in my lunch hour! I like the idea of the stories created in ordinary places.
April 2, 2025
An enjoyable trip through car parks of supermarkets and retail outlets around the UK. It’s funny, it’s well researched and it’s at times quite sad. If you liked Gareth’s book unofficial Britain you’ll like this too.
October 3, 2025
An interesting psychogeographical wander through supermarket and superstore car parks.
This has lots of funny and also much sarcasm, with at times a sardonic flavour. And a bit of sad.
I think I will see car parks in a new light, now.
This has lots of funny and also much sarcasm, with at times a sardonic flavour. And a bit of sad.
I think I will see car parks in a new light, now.
December 20, 2025
I really enjoy Gareth E Rees' work. This one was in need of a slight trim. The monotony of detail, the repetition of it all, when not expanded upon with history and analysis, felt like a surveyors checklist.
September 13, 2022
A fun example of the type. Included a few I have known (and loved?). You can go back to the carpark but it is never the same
June 21, 2023
just like me fr
June 22, 2023
You will never look at a car park the same way again.
April 6, 2024
If psychogeography is your thing, then this may work for you. It didn't for me - it totally failed the "so what?" test.
December 22, 2019
“Out here on the Roman road, marking the entrance to the Mall car park, this faux-Neolithic standing stone sculpture suggests that we have progressed from the worship of the old gods into a brave new dawn of commerce, fossil fuel combustion and convenient parking. It reminds me of the statue of the Ancestor on his knees outside the Holiday Inn at the Solstice Retail Park in Amesbury. The implication of artworks like these is that from the time humans learned to use tools, capitalism became inevitable.”
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April 26, 2020I recognised the twin tides of optimism and despair in this book, the hope of transcending what seems like inevitable catastrophe by finding small expressions of mysterious beauty to remind us we are not only doomed. It is funny, well written and engaging. Though the quixotic futility of the crusade was what made it interesting, both for the fact of it and for the writer's own analysis of it, I started to switch off a bit during later descriptions. Probably the bits in between the carparks were what offered the most. The author is clearly well aware of this and his tousling with the relevance or pointlessness was part of what I enjoyed. I'm not sure if that proves or disproves the thesis of the project. But well worth a read.
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