John Green's Blog, page 68

Omnivoracious

Paper Towns was an Omnivoracious Daily Crush yesterday, complete with a very thoughtful and kind review. I know that Omnivoracious gets a daily crush on someone every day, but I still feel special.

Paper Towns Giveaway (and my puppy's secret shame)

To celebrate the forthcoming paperback release of Paper Towns I am giving away one copy of the paperback each day for the next two weeks to my favorite ten-word comment. You can comment here, too, to be part of the contest. For aural/visual learners, the exact same information is contained in the video below (plus footage of Willy's secret shame):

The Health Care Debate

The brilliant people at Thought Bubble took a video I made about the health care debate and used it as a script for the video above. Amazing, eh?

A Book Reviewer's Apologies

So first, anyone who hasn't should read this brilliant blog post by Shannon Hale about book evaluation v. self evaluation.

(Hale's blog is one of my favorites about books, and that particular post brilliantly articulates a bunch of things I've been trying to think about, but I kept finding my brain unequal to the task, and it's such a relief when someone says things you've been trying to think, which is also one of the things I enjoy so much about Hale's books.)

I've written many hundreds of boo

My Birthday: An Overview

Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. Getting old is one of those things--like marriage and childbirth and standing in line at the grocery store--that happens to everyone but feels particularly significant when it is happening to you, which makes the triteness of the feelings involved sort of maddening. So, yeah, for the last week, even though I know birthdays are meaningless constructions and etc., I was feeling all those totally cliche feelings associated with not-being-as-young-as-you-used-to-be, a

Truth or Fail: The John Green Books Edition

Okay, so here's how this works. First, play the video. Then, click on the answer you think is right, and it will lead you to a series of more questions and answers about my books. (That is, unless you have somehow turned off youtube annotations, in which case it won't work at all. But it should work.)

Truth or Fail is an internet video gameshow that Hank and I have created. If you like this episode, you can check out many more at Truth or Fail Headquarters.

A Window into Book Challenges

There's a story on the New York Times web site today about the Brooklyn Public Library's response to book challenges. The story mentions my book Looking for Alaska in passing:

"The 11 written objections to Brooklyn's collection include complaints about "Beloved," by Toni Morrison (sexual content), and "Looking for Alaska," by John Green (obscenity and denigration of religion)."

First, let me just say what a pleasure it is to appear in the same sentence as Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. Anyway, the

What I Was Up To

(I remain interested in the question of whether and how made up people become real.)

What I'm Working On

S-s-s-something from the comments:

K writes, "Does Paige have to do with The Sequel? Or the book you are writing with David Levithan? Even if she doesn't, can we have more information on those projects? It doesn't seem like you talk about what you are doing with them like you talked about what went into Paper Towns."

K, thanks for reminding me that before this blog was about boring publishing crap, and before it was about inexplicable dj biographies, it was about books. Specifically, my books. He

Paige Railstone

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Paige Railstone (July 31st 1987 - ) is a popular underground dj and budding singer-songwriter who currently resides full-time in hotels around the world. (When asked by a reporter recently if she was American, Railstone said, "Sometimes. Sometimes I am Canadian, sometimes European, sometimes African, sometimes Asian. In this world, it is not enough to be who you are. You must also be where you are.")


Childhood

Railstone was born and raised in a small agrarian community in rural South Dakota. Her f