Join Us for Read25 Next Week and an Author Meet-and-Greet on July 19
Get a sneak peek at the store IRL, gather with other readers, and maybe even win a raffle!
We're hosting Read 25 Day this coming Wednesday, June 25, 2025, starting at 5:00PM. Bring your own book or borrow one from our used collection; books will also be for sale. We'll have not one, but two rounds of reading sessions, followed by discussion of the books and on the joys of reading, as we as raffle drawings for prizes from our sponsors. The event will take place rain or shine; if the weather permits, there will be chairs available for reading outside.
Read 25 will happen nationwide at dozens of independent bookshops in partnership with Bookshop.org and Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project. More on the Happiness Project, Read 25, and the awesome list of participating bookstores here!
Launch Update -- Author Meet-and-Greet
Can't wait to see you all on the weekend of July 17-20, our opening weekend!
Definitely stop by on Saturday, July 19 between 1 and 4 pm, when you'll find a seriously great series of local authors just kinda lounging in our cafe area, chatting breezily about, you know, authorly things with readers. Check out this lineup, which includes links to purchase the authors' books, should you wish to do so in advance of the event:
1pm Suzanne Uttaro Samuels
Suzanne is an award-winning essayist and legal scholar, and now the author of the forthcoming Seed of the Pomegranate, a historical novel about a young artist newly arrived in New York from Sicily in the early twentieth century, compelled to use her skills in her family's counterfeiting ring.
2pm Poets Juan Pablo Mobili and Rebecca Watkins
Juan (Contraband) is Poet Laureate of Rockland County; Rebecca (Field Guide to Forgiveness) was recently featured in the Rockland Business Journal.
3pm Memoirists Lorraine Ash and Joanne Flynn Black
Lorraine (Life Touches Life) is not only an accomplished author, but has helped dozens of writers tell their own stories through memoir. Joanne (In Motion: Around the World in Love and Heartbreak) recently published a perfect summer read about world travel and falling in love.
All authors' books will be for sale too!
Results of Fill These Shelves
While around 16 percent of respondents say they prefer genre fiction (ordinary characters, extraordinary happenings) and 25 percent prefer literary fiction (ordinary happenings, extraordinary characters), a whopping 33 percent love sci-fi and fantasy! Wow. But we have also had requests for children's, middle grade, and young adult fiction and nonfiction; a smattering of romance; and our community's wishlists include historical fiction, classics, and poetry. I would personally encourage all readers to try some biography and memoir; it really is fair to say that truth is stranger than fiction.
But the real takeaway is: we at The Sparkle have got our work cut out for us to curate a broad, fresh selection for this community! And we can't wait to get started.
Last But Not Least: Sparkill Vibes
One of the many things we have loved about joining the Sparkill community has been the sweet vibrations. Our neighbors have welcomed us like family, from local residents who knocked on our door as we were painting and setting up shop to say hi, to the amazing folks at Catique next door and down-the-block neighbors at the Noble Cafe and Noble Market, to the folks at Divine and Lanni's, who've let it be known that they wish us the best. One community member told me that she and another neighbor have been working with that Sparkill vibe to manifest a bookstore. Perhaps that explains the feeling of elation we've had as we set up and put things in place: we were welcomed before we even knew it. Thank you, dear Sparklers (if I may). We look forward to building on this beautiful vibe for a long time to come!