March 30, 2025

By Cat Zhang

Photo: OK McCausland for New York Magazine

On a recent March morning, the Simon & Schuster video team is huddled in the best-sellers corner of McNally Jackson, taping its upcoming web series, Bookstore Blitz. Sean Manning, the flagship imprint’s new publisher, supervises from the sidelines. The concept of the show is simple: Guests get $100 and five minutes for a bookstore shopping spree, a sort of literary Criterion Closet Picks. Today, the team is filming 28-year-old Brooklyn novelist Sophie Kemp, who is here promoting her upcoming debut, Paradise Logic. Kemp scurries through McNally’s labyrinthine two-story display with the S&S video crew trailing her, racing against the clock. “This the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my whole life,” she deadpans. A few minutes later, she hauls a pile of books to the checkout counter, including David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster, of which she says with a smirk, “No comment.” Manning laughs.

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

By Madame Clairevoyant

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