By Nancy Powell
Young, old, and not-so old attending The Scoop at Simon & Schuster in Room 4 received an earful of scintillating titles that are either currently out or due out this fall. In a sometimes entertaining and high-octane rapid fire session, the marketing team (Lauren Hoffman, Chrissy Noh, Jodie Hockensmith, Keri Horan and Liesa Abrams) shot through back cover blurbs of some 49 titles to a near-packed room in a little over 30 minutes, inciting the crowd with whisperings of sweet nothings (galley and swag distributions downstairs at Booth 1128) and stirring up buzz for S&S’s highly anticipated titles.
Among the already-released titles earning the seal of approval from the marketing team was Charlie the Choo Choo: From the World of the Dark Tower by Beryl Evans. Stephen King was quoted as saying, “If I were ever to write a children’s book, it would be just like this.” It was revealed that Beryl Evans, a character in King’s The Dark Towers series, happened to be the man himself.
Another book that got a ringing endorsement from Chrissy Noh was Zero Repeat Forever, which Noh called “the fifth wave meets Beauty and the Beast,” Empress by S.J. Kincaid, which Noh called “unputdownable,” and one of Noh’s favorites, Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, a children’s book about a kid afraid of glow in the dark underwear. Jodie Hockensmith chose the Trollhunter series, a Netflix-based animated series which director Guillermo del Toro likened to “Hellboy for kids,” a comment that elicited laughter from the audience.
Upcoming giveaways from the booth were also announced during the panel. These include a galley of An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard (say the word “magic” to score), a galley of Quillifer by Walter Jon Williams (Saturday, 1:00 PM), a print inspired by Gregory Manchess’ Above the Timberline, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Friday), a tenth anniversary special edition of Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones, An Enchantment of Ravens (Saturday, 3:00 PM), The Unwanteds (Saturday, 12:00 PM), Suzanne Young’s The Program (Sunday), and Zero Repeat Forever (Sunday, 3:00 PM).
