It’s a good time to be a ‘Ninja, even more so than the rest of the time when the best part of it is all the flipping out and beheading of enemies. Ex-Ninja Pete is guest editing the Afterword blog at the Post and old-timer Jorge is profiled at the Torontoist site. It’s good to be us. We’d like to thank our wives, Jesus, Pfizer, and the good people at the Maple Leaf bacon division for never poisoning us, you know, directly.

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.