About Us

Blue Whale Books was founded by Scott Fennessey in 1994 after he worked at Rare Book School as a graduate student at the University of Virginia. The initial stock of 34,000 volumes was acquired from the Richmond Bookshop.

Andrew Hniat, Manager,  has been at Blue Whale since 2014. He learned the ropes of bookselling working at the local Friends of the Library sale. He is the main buyer and cataloger of books.

Lisa Reardon was new to bookselling when she joined us in 2018. She is in charge of everything Scott and Andrew don't want to do, and catalogs the prints and maps.

Gizmo was the best bookselling dog in history. She passed away in 2023.