Ninja’s Comments (group member since Dec 06, 2019)

Ninja’s comments from the Indie Challenge group.

February's pick for our book club was The Good Immigrant, for the 'anthology' square of the bingo card.

Feel free to share your thoughts and reviews!

Sorry for the delay! A combination I think - either a book that's prior to an author's current release or one published before the start of 2018

Posting my Indie Challenge update for this month here as well as in our newsletter!

A debut - Leonard and Hungry Paul
An anthology - The Good Immigrant
Kids or YA - Lumberjanes Volume 5
An author from another country -
Underrated book -
An award winner -
Book that defies genre -
A women’s press -
Brilliant backlist -
A poetry collection -
Non-fiction -
Favourite -
Genre fiction - (Lumberjanes Volume 5)
Recommended by a friend -
Book from a series - (Lumberjanes Volume 5)
A crowdfunded book -
A new to you press -
A book from your TBR - (Leonard and Hungry Paul)
Biography -
Translated book -
Marginalised people -
A press over 20 years old -
A Ninja book - (Leonard and Hungry Paul)
LGBTQIA - Under the Udala Trees
Free -

The ones I've put in brackets are because I've decided that although the challenge allows you to use one book for more than one square, I'd like to read one per square, but for now I've filled in those with the books I've read already!

Who's reading January's book club choice? I finished it quite early in the month and I'm interested to hear how you're finding it.

Oh that's a shame! I don't know a lot about poetry anymore either to be quite honest, that's sort of why I put a square on there. I'd like to read more of it but I do struggle with finding inspiring poets. Maybe I'll put a plea in the next newsletters for some poetry lovers to join the group and suggest us some great books!

I don't think we'll be short on suggestions for Kids & YA books. I've already ticked off my square with the latest in the Lumberjanes series, but I'd still love to hear your recommendations!

Mine are (probably predictably) Dragon's Green by Scarlett Thomas, Cogheart by Peter Bunzl, everything by Holly Bourne, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, and of course the Lumberjanes series by Noelle Stevenson.

Sarah wrote: "Ah! It’s called Funny Ha Ha and it’s edited by Paul Merton but the publisher is Head of Zeus. Sorry!"

Thanks for the suggestion! Head of Zeus is indie :-)

I might join you keeping track here. I've got a twitter thread but I tend to forget to update...

Crowdfunded books I have that are great are The Sewing Machine by Natalie Fergie (Unbound), anything from 3 of Cups Press (which also work for anthologies), the original print run of Heartstopper by Alice Oseman was crowdfunded, although it's now been picked up by a major publisher (it's so good though!). Also for poetry collection, I've not read it yet but The princess saves herself in this one by Amanda Lovelace has been recommended to me lots.

Rachel wrote: "Hi, my name is Rachel.

My husband would say that I have too many books. I would say that there is no such thing. I just don’t have enough time to read them.

My aim this year is to read as many of..."

Hi Rachel! I'm trying to read more of the books I already own too, although deciding to up our bookshop crawls from 2 to 4 in 2020 probably won't help with this!

Thanks! I'll have a browse

February is anthologies and so far I'm going to be doing all the suggesting! Anyone have any great ideas?

My current wishlist:
Resist: Stories of Uprising - Ra Page (editor)
Global: An Extraordinary Guide for Ordinary Heroes
Lilian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
Working with Nature: Saving and Using the World's Wild Places by Jeremy Purseglove
Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

I know that some of us are more familiar with independent publishers than others, and when I first started out trying to read more indie books the most helpful thing I did was to make myself a wishlist of indie books I wanted.

I thought it would be good to do that here as a way to inspire each other (and add yet more books to our TBRs!)

If you happen to have a book from someone's wishlist that you'd like to pass on to them, please feel free but you must message each other privately to organise any exchanges.

Every month during 2020 Ninja Book Club books will be chosen from the themes on our bingo card. Below are the themes for each month & we need your recommendations to help fill the four slots we have in each months' poll!

January is already chosen. The only rule is that books must be published by an independent publisher but otherwise anything goes!


January : A debut - Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession
February: An Anthology
March: Kids or YA
April: An author from another country
May: An Underrated Book
June: An Award Winner
July: Book that defies genre
August: A Women's Press
September: Brilliant Backlist
October: A Poetry Collection
November: Non-Fiction
December: Favourite

Welcome to the 2020 Indie Challenge!

This is where you can introduce yourself, tell us something about yourself and leave a link to anywhere you talk about books :-)

I'm Bex, I love all kinds of tea, chocolate and yoga and I've run out of bookshelf space. I talk about books at www.ninjabookbox.com/blog