The Book Teller

08/05/2026

🚨This is Guy Montag 20-alarm-fire scary 🚨

Will AI be the sole purveyors of human knowledge? Not if we can help it. Please treasure your books, and if you donate, do your due diligence and know to whom you donate.

AI developers are quietly buying physical books by the millions, slicing them apart, scanning every page into AI training datasets, and discarding the originals.

07/31/2026

We're not going to complain about this rain — Whitewater needs it, and honestly, so do our to-be-read piles 📚 🌧️ There's something about a dark and stormy night that makes a good mystery feel just right. Choosing your next read is the easy part — we have the cozy classics like Christie and Holmes, and new favorites like Louise Penny, Rita Mae Browne, and Elly Griffiths, as well as some darker and stormier selections. Cozy up, this weekend's for reading!

07/11/2026

**Last night's event was really one for the books! 📚✨**

Huge thanks to Katie Childs for sharing her beautiful photography and for being such an important part of the shop. We're going to miss having you around Whitewater, Katie — but we cannot wait to see where this next chapter takes you. Go be brilliant at grad school!

And to those who stepped up to the mic — thank you for trusting us with your words and for making the night feel so special! Come back soon 🎤

To everyone who came out, listened, laughed, and lingered — thank you for making this little bookstore feel exactly like what it's supposed to be: a gathering place.

More open mics to come. Stay tuned.

07/08/2026

Join us for Open Mic and a Book Launch to celebrate Katie Childs, our first employee, without whom we never would have had that first open mic back in 2021! All are welcome to celebrate with us, so grab your guitar and a friend, and join us at 6:30 for an unforgettable night with friends! Open mic sign up upon arrival. Light refreshments. Suggested donation $5.

06/26/2026

This week's pick is All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson.
It's a memoir about growing up Black and q***r — and about a family who loved them anyway. Not despite. Anyway. Because their whole self was always the part worth loving.
George grew up, felt seen, felt loved, and became a bestselling author and activist named by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Funny how that works.
Pick up your copy today!
P.S. Reading a book about a frog has never once turned anyone into a frog. We promise!

06/24/2026

Happy 123rd birthday to our favorite literary oracle, George Orwell! Despite never laying eyes on a smartphone, a smart speaker, or a doorbell cam, he nonetheless saw power clearly enough to know where it was headed: data harvesting, targeted ads, and a camera on every corner. We're not saying he was psychic; he was just paying really close attention.
It's an understatement to say 1984 holds up in 2026. Come reread it. We'll be over here, not listening through your phone. (Like we have the budget for that kind of surveillance, anyway. We can barely afford the AC 😆)

06/23/2026

Somewhere out there, a man worth $200 billion wants you to feel like you're getting a "Prime" deal this week.
We'd like to offer a counter-proposal.
Bookshop.org's Anti Prime Day is live NOW through June 26th — FREE shipping, certified B Corp ethics, and the knowledge that your book money is going to independent stores like The Book Teller instead of, you know...that guy.
Find The Book Teller on the map at bookshop.org and shop like your local bookstore depends on it. (It does.)

A better way to buy books online. Every purchase financially supports local independent bookstores.

06/19/2026

Juneteenth marks the day freedom finally reached the last enslaved people in the U.S. — two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Today, 19% of our sales go to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that's spent over 50 years fighting white supremacy and defending the rights of Black and Brown communities through the courts. Stop in, find your next read, and help us give back.

06/17/2026

More stormy weather on the way, and hands- down my favorite place to shelter is in our vault. There's something about a dark and stormy sky that makes Whitewater's coziest storm shelter feel like the safest spot in town. Come ride it out with a good book.

06/01/2026

Stories save lives. That's not hyperbole — it's why representation matters, why Pride Month matters. When a young person sees themselves reflected in a book, a character, a story, they learn something essential: I am not alone. I am not wrong. I belong here.
So do you. 🌈📚