IndieWeb Book Club
IndieWeb Book Club is a monthly book themed blog carnival inspired by the indieweb-carnival started in October 2025.
Why
IndieWeb carnivals help motivate people to post more on their personal websites.
And for all reasons why described in:
Who
Anyone with a website is eligible to host and welcome to participate!
How To Host
Each month, IndieWeb Book Club has a different host.
At the month's beginning, as host, create an announcement post talking about your book. Add that to the table of books and hosts. Hosts add to that post as entries come in by webmention, email, or comment. At the month’s end, the host collects the received submissions and posts an overview of it at a new url and/or update the original announcement.
To commit to hosting, sign up below!
How To Participate
Read the book! Post your review, thoughts, opinions or even a small read post and notify the host.
Books & Hosts
Current
2026
| Month | Host | Book | Intro | Roundup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January |  Mark Sutherland
|
The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook | Intro | |
| February |  capjamesg
|
the art of explanation by Ros Atkins | Intro | |
| March |  Nick Simson
|
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander | Intro | |
| April |  jo
|
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams | Intro | |
| May |  StonePick
|
To Live by Yu Hua | TBA | |
| June |  benji
|
TBD | ||
| July |  Manuel Moreale
|
TBD | ||
| August | ||||
| September | ||||
| October | ||||
| November | ||||
| December |
Past
2025
| Month | Host | Book | Intro | Roundup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October |  zacharykaiwrites
|
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin | Intro & Roundup | |
| November |  Joe Crawford
|
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud | Intro & Roundup | |
| December |  Al Abut
|
Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams | Intro & Roundup
| |
Pinch-Hitter Hosts
If you want to be a host but do not want to commit to it for a specific month, you can add yourself to the pinch hitters list. A pinch hitter fills in if a scheduled host has to back out, or if there is a month without a host. In that scenario, we will try to find a host from this list.
By adding yourself to the list below, you only indicate that you are willing to be asked to host on short-term notice. It does not mean that you need to accept it at that time.
Current Rules (Can Change)
The rules are aligned with the rules for indieweb-carnival with a few tweaks.
For Host
At the month’s beginning, the host posts their chosen book as a post on their site. The host collects the submissions until the end of the month. After that, the host posts the summary of all interactions including links and sends them to the next month's host post.
The main way of people submitting are webmentions and email.
Ideally, when selecting a book, avoid ones that lean too heavily into something that may cause unease, or a genre that only interests a niche audience. The book should also be written in English, but it can be a translation.
Also, please submit a book you haven't written/contributed to.
Ideas For Book Selection
- Fiction or non-fiction, whichever appeals!
- One that discusses art, design, or history
- A topic that relates to the theme of 'indie'
- A book you've been wanting to read for a while
Rules For Participants
Once you’ve read the book, post something about it on your blog, like a simple read post or a review. The post should be written in the month the book club takes place.
Then, submit your submission to the host via webmention or email.
History
Started in its current iteration by zacharykaiwrites.
Current Notes & Ideas
- zacharykaiwrites has compiled the list of selected books and interviews with hosts on his book blog.
Previous Notes & Ideas
IndieWeb book club is a group of people interested in creating book club functionality a reality in their online presences. Alternately, it could be an actual group of IndieWeb adherents actually reading (IndieWeb related?) books together and discussing them.
- 2019-05-04
Chris Aldrich posted on his own website proposing a book club for Mike Monteiro's book Ruined by Design. Participants are encouraged to write and post publicly about the book on their own websites and syndicate their participation to https://indieweb.xyz/en/bookclub/ as an organizing hub for the conversation. - Chris Aldrich: Could build a parser to take a collection of people and scan their want-to-read lists/posts to surface common books to aid in choosing the next book.
Tantek Çelik: Creating a leaderboard of books to-read