Interview: Torontoist

I’m interviewed at the Torontoist books section about my role as Bookninja. It’ll be seven years in August that I’ve been doing this. Which is a good and bad thing, depending on how you look at it. I’ve got no real plans to stop, but if someone wanted to buy it from me, I don’t know if I could say no to the chance to write more….

Bookninja began as an online forum for a bunch of writers to kibitz and argue about the state of the book world but has since evolved into…an online form for a bunch of writers to kibitz and argue about the book world. The difference? Now thousands of other people—including other writers, publishing folk, and many intrigued readers—are listening in and even joining the chat. The conductor, head vocalist, and stage hand for this bookish choir is George Murray, who co-founded Bookninja with fellow author Peter Darbyshire back in 2003, when the phrase “book blog” still had to qualified with some form of descriptor for the web-challenged.

Books@Torontoist editor James Grainger spoke with Murray about the past, present, and future of the pioneering books blog.