John Green's Blog, page 67

The Future of Reading: Your Questions

School Library Journal has just published an extensively footnoted essay I wrote about the future of reading, book publishing, This Is Not Tom, and some other things.

I'm going to use this blog post as a space to answer questions about the essay and continue the conversation about the future of publishing, but none of this will make sense unless you've already read the essay. Feel free to leave more questions in comments; I will update this post frequently over the next few weeks. So now, the ...

For those of you who do not regularly watch the videos...

...you should probably watch this one to the end.



(Also, why don't you go subscribe to our youtube channel? It's far better than this old thing.)

The Sex Scene in Looking for Alaska

The novelist Varian Johnson has written an essay about the dual sex scenes in my first novel, Looking for Alaska. The essay is much smarter and more interesting than anything I've ever said about the role that oral sex scene plays in the book.

I am profoundly grateful to Johnson, and I hope you'll read the essay.

EDIT!!! The blog post contains SPOILERS. (Sorry I failed to mention that before; I kind of don't believe in spoilers so I am always forgetting that. Sorry!)

A Video Response to Twilight and New Moon

All of your comments on last week's blog post led me to think more and harder, which led to this video, so thanks!

On Liking Twilight

Okay, briefly, because I'm trying to do NaNoWriMo:

The Washington Post* has published a story that basically argues that enjoying Twilight, like getting your period, is just an unfortunate fact of womanhood. (The piece also argues, albeit subtly, that women are weak-will creatures who will cannot help but give in to their lesser, shameful urges.)

And I just want to say: I am a man. I am a reasonably intelligent, well-educated adult man, and I think Twilight is insanely fun to read. Of course, I...

The Whole National Book Awards and the Death of Genre and Stuff

(This post is for publishing nerds only. And probably not interesting for anyone other than me. But anyway, please come see me live and in person at the Main Library in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday at 6:30. There will also be a smaller event at the Hilliard Branch of the public library at 1 PM that day. 4772 Cemetery Rd / Hilliard, OH 43026.)

So, okay. The National Book Award finalists were announced yesterday, and one of the finalists in the books for young people category, David Small's STITCHE...

Upcoming Appearances

TOMORROW, Tuesday Oct. 13th, I'll be in LaGrange, Illinois Tuesday, October 13 at 7 PM at the LaGrange Borders. (1 N. La Grange Road) This event will also be livecast at Penguin's cool new web site, www.pointofviewbooks.com

NEXT TUESDAY, October 20th, I'll be in Columbus, Ohio, at the Main Library, at 6:30. (96 S. Grant Ave. Columbus, OH)

Hope to see you!

Hey Hoosiers

The Indianapolis public library is currently doing this amazingly awesome thing with my books called Pass the Book. Hoosier readers should check it out and participate; in fact, anyone working in libraries should check it out, because you should totally steal this idea.

Banned in My Hometown: What's a Kid to Do

So my hometown (or at least my home region, since Orlando is not so much a place as a series of interconnected geographical ideas) is dealing with a challenge to many books, including Looking for Alaska.

The challengers involved say that my book would meet Florida's legal definition of obscenity, and that it shouldn't be available to teen readers in the public library of Leesburg. First, just let me note that I am not a pornographer:



Let me make this clear: An individual scene from a novel cann...

Some Recent Videos

My Puppy's Secret Shame:



My brother pwns CSI in one take (on his 23rd try):



And lastly, a video about Caster Semenya, sex, and the role of ambiguity in life and sports: