This week’s specialty flavor is Strawberry. A delicious treat full of summer smiles. Come give it a try. Ice cream all year, all the toppings, all the taste.

Are they expensive? Yes. Are they amazing? Also yes. This set of three brushes are the actual perfect set. Everything you need. The right sizes, they fold up to protect the tips, and they come in a leather carrying case you can just pop in your bag. You won’t regret them.

Save the date! November 8, 2025. Live authors at the Reading Room, at the Katonah Library, workshops at Chroma Gallery and Oak & Oil Gallery. Fun at the Katonah Museum. Shops and local businesses with bookish themes and authors. Tickets on sale for author talks starting in September. www.westchesterbookfest.org

Love these small watercolor sets. And these amazing watercolor bookmark coloring sets. So much fun to paint and use in your favorite reads.

The cutest tiny canvases. Toss them in a bag for some great travel painting.

Pre-made flash cards ready to grab and go. Get your summer practice in, and then add a book because of this photo makes you cranky, chances are you’re a book person.

Our newest fashion favorite. Grab a fan! Throw it in your bag. Summer happy. Fashion forward.

New! Incense sticks made from natural products. Cinnamon, white musk, sea breeze, frankincense and English rose in pretty, portable glass containers.

Adorable little dragon, nervous about not being able to breathe fire on his first day of school, but then he learns that everyone is there to learn new skills. A great lesson but also just a super cute story.

What If We Get It Right? “Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures.

Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice. Visionary farmers and financiers, architects and advocates, help us conjure a flourishing future, one worth the effort it will take—from every one of us, with whatever we have to offer—to create.”

Grab your copy here and contact bedford2030.org for information on their upcoming book club.

Join Christine on August 30th at 2pm for our sci-fi/horror book club: The Third Rule of Time Travel.

“Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She's built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time--to any point in the traveler's lifetime--and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it's not perfect: the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.

After Beth's husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella--their only daughter--and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.

Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.

As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.”

Join Ava for her favorite: Shakespeare! This month she explores The Taming of the Shrew. Never read it? Jump in with us using the No Fear Shakespeare series. August 23 at 3pm.

Join Spenser in a discussion of The Passion According to G.H. August 16th.

“The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector's mystical novel of 1964, concerns a well-to-do Rio sculptress, G.H., who enters her maid's room, sees a cockroach crawling out of the wardrobe, and, panicking, slams the door--crushing the cockroach--and then watches it die. At the end of the novel, at the height of a spiritual crisis, comes the most famous and most genuinely shocking scene in Brazilian literature...”

Join Penny and her foodie book crew for a discussion of The Last Sweet Bite, August 19th at 1pm. Due to the timely nature of this pick, the Reading Room will be donating 25% of any purchases of this title to the World Central Kitchen.

August 23 at 3pm, join Spenser for his non-fiction book club discussion of Doppelganger by Naomi Klein.

Save the date for a day filled with authors and book talks and signings and bookish wonder. We are helping to plan the Westchester Book Festival right here in Katonah this year! November 8, 2025. Author talks at the Katonah library, workshops at Oak & Oil Gallery and Chroma, and authors ALL day here at the Katonah Reading Room for author chats and book signings. We can’t wait. Tickets on sale in September. Be sure to stay tuned.

Penny has been reading up a storm this summer. Come check out her picks for your next read.

If you haven’t sat on a rock or a beach or in a meadow painting yet this summer, what are you waiting for? The ultimate summer happy can be found traveling with Beam paints in your pocket, ready to create at any moment. Come see what travel sized happy we have waiting for you.

Want a milkshake without the milk? Try our alternate milk frappe: Oat or Almond milk, ice, caramel (whipped cream add on).

Sour patch kids and a book. Is there anything better on a summer day? Whiling away the time in some shade, finding a new story, catching a moment to yourself. Don’t forget to read with your kids this summer and join our book bingo. The sour patch kids help the process.