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An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

novel · in 81 videos (2015–2026)

Hank's first novel, published on 25 September 2018: April May, a 23-year-old graphic designer, finds a giant sculpture in New York, names it Carl, and her video makes her famous.

By: Hank Green · Within: April May, Carl, Andy Skampt, Maya

Videos by year: 2015: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2018: 30 · 2019: 10 · 2020: 14 · 2021: 9 · 2022: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2026: 1

Also known as: AART

Threads

Also named in the threads: John's AFC Wimbledon FIFA series on HankGames, whose ad revenue sponsors the real AFC Wimbledon with Nerdfighter-designed ads (2013) · John asks clubs, teams and organizations wanting modest sponsorship to email him at sparksflyup@gmail.com (2018) · John: take a year off Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, starting when P4A 2018 ends (2018) · Hank: superior fish beings will emerge in 2012 (1990) · Vlogbrothers videos of each brother reading the first chapter of his new book (2008)

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (26) · The New York Times (6) · New York City (7) · celebrity (4) · Barnes & Noble (2) · Twitter (8) · Canada (4) · Amazon (3) · collective action (3) · Australia (3)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2015

  • 2015-01-13 · On Writing, Looking for Alaska Turning 10, and Winning the Project for Awesome — John says he is going back to writing, and that he heard on Tumblr that Hank is also writing a story, joking that this is how he learns about his brother's life. (playful) — 00:03:37
  • 2015-02-13 · Draw My Life + 16 Other Suggestions — Hank: Asked about his book, Hank says he is thinking about writing a fiction-y thing, for now about a girl, a robot and what it means to be human. (hedged) — 00:01:05
  • 2015-06-26 · How to Get Good at Everything — Hank says he has been writing a novel-like book, not secretly but without broadcasting it, starting during NaNoWriMo in November (November 2014). — 00:00:01
    • Hank says he reached 15,000 words during November and, as of June 26th, has hit NaNoWriMo's 50,000-word mark, unbothered by his slowness. — 00:00:11
    • Hank says that with revisions he will probably still be writing the book a year from now, which terrifies him; it is unlike anything he has done and he has no reason to believe he can. (hedged) — 00:00:32
    • Hank says he has to do that and it will take a long time, but he is going to do it, and tells John to stop writing so he can catch up, then not to stop. — 00:03:31

2017

2018

2019

  • 2019-04-23 · untitled — John: Hank is sorting through titles for the sequel to his number one New York Times best-selling An Absolutely Remarkable Thing; helping him, John re-realized he is terrible at titles. — 00:00:00
  • 2019-06-21 · How to Lie While Telling the Truth — announcement: Hank announces a very quick tour to celebrate the paperback release of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. — 00:02:56
  • 2019-07-16 · star struck — John says part of what Hank explored so beautifully in An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is how weird fame is. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-10-29 · The Truth about None Pizza with Left Beef — Hank tells John he has finished a draft of his book, the biggest news of his year. — 00:02:55
  • 2019-10-31 · Book News! — Hank has started revising and really enjoys the story; it is a mess, but he thinks it will be good. — 00:00:29
    • The first book is 330-something pages; the sequel will probably be over 400, a more involved story with more happening and more points of view. (hedged) — 00:01:27
    • Hank says internet discourse did change his perspective: the first book was about the internet as it is, the sequel imagines the social internet far in the future, though the book isn't set far ahead. — 00:02:31
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John says Hank has just finished a sequel to his first novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. — 00:02:39
  • 2019-11-29 · My Most Controversial Opinion — announcement: Hank announces his new book, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, out July 7, 2020, with pre-order links and a synopsis in the description; he'll talk about it more soon. — 00:03:07
  • 2019-12-17 · The Best Days of My Decade — John: On September 25, 2018, Hank's first novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing was published, and John got to support him at the launch at Town Hall in New York City. — 00:02:53
  • 2019-12-20 · Reading the First Chapter of A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor — announcement: Hank's book A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor now has a cover, designed by Kaitlin Kall; followers on social media may have seen it. — 00:00:02
    • Hank reads the first chapter of his second book, the sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. — 00:00:27
  • …and 3 statements more in 2019 — all statements of 2019

2020

  • 2020-01-10 · The Thing I would Like to End — Hank likes the book a lot: it is much more ambitious than his first and says interesting and important things we need to be thinking about now. — 00:03:14
  • 2020-05-08 · The years start coming and they don't stop coming! — Hank has finished his last edits to his book and sent them in; it is officially 60 days, two months, from publication. — 00:03:04
  • 2020-06-12 · Fed to the Rules — announcement: Hank tells John it is 25 days until July 7, when the Carl saga concludes and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is released. — 00:02:59
    • Hank says signed editions of A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor can be pre-ordered all over, now including Waterstones in the UK. — 00:02:59
    • Hank and John will hold a launch event on July 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern, here, open to everyone. — 00:02:59
  • 2020-06-19 · Only Shooting Stars — announcement: Hank tells John his author copies of the book are in, with the actual words; it is a little longer than the first, not by design: there was just a lot of story to tell. — 00:03:08
  • 2020-06-30 · i like it — John reread Hank's A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor over the weekend and thinks it is the rare sequel that improves upon the original. — 00:00:41
    • John calls the book funny, heartwarming, moving and a big adventure, but most of all an astonishingly sophisticated analysis of what the internet does to us and our social orders. — 00:00:49
  • 2020-07-07 · You're a Rock Star — John: Hank's first book, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, was the main reason John quit using the social internet in 2018. — 00:01:56
    • Reading it, John saw how online experience had fractured his attention, made him seek things he didn't want, and let corporations monetizing his attention shape his daily life. — 00:02:10
    • A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is available now wherever books are sold, and they launch it tonight at 7pm at youtube.com/vlogbrothers. — 00:03:13
  • 2020-12-29 · Looking Back at My 2020 Goals — John: Sarah's book You Are an Artist and Hank's A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor both came out, but the touring John planned for them did not happen. — 00:01:56
  • …and 16 statements more in 2020 — all statements of 2020

2021

  • 2021-01-05 · SUPERIOR FISH BEINGS — John: Avoiding spoilers, John says adult Hank has arguably written the two greatest superior fish being novels of the century, with few actual fish beings. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:58
  • 2021-01-29 · The Gamestop Short Squeeze in 4 Minutes — recommendation: In a comment John welcomes news-driven viewers and calls Hank's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing his favorite novel about the social internet. — creator comment
  • 2021-03-09 · Hank Rebranded Without Any of Us Noticing — John says Hank's novels brilliantly explore how online you can never fully leave your past behind: everything you said is still being said, heard in the listener's present. — 00:02:55
  • 2021-05-25 · The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated — John: The video continues a tradition from 2008, when John read Paper Towns' first chapter; the brothers have since read first chapters of seven books; for this one John and Rosianna asked Meitar Almog to make art. — video description
  • 2021-07-16 · Should You Abandon Social Media? — announcement: Hank says his two novels telling one story, the first about the internet now and the second about what it might become, are both available in paperback as of this week (week of 12 July 2021), wherever books are sold. — 00:03:13
  • 2021-10-19 · Cat Names: The Authoritative Guide — John can't recommend naming a cat after your work: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a good name for a book, but not for a cat. (playful) — 00:02:33
  • …and 3 statements more in 2021 — all statements of 2021

2022

  • 2022-12-09 · Things are Changing Very Fast — Hank says he wrote two books about how, when new things arrive (a pandemic, social change, a powerful technology, an alien), people retreat to the camps where they feel safest, the more so the more confused they are. — 00:00:00
  • 2022-12-20 · The Best Books Get Better — John says he has come to see Hank's two-book series as books that are getting better over time, without comparing Hank to Fitzgerald or Butler. — 00:02:26
    • John says he first loved them as fun adventure stories about internet culture and fame, articulating celebrity and the fracturing of attention as no book had before. — 00:02:26
    • John says the books also explore how wealthy individuals form symbiotic ties with angry, disenfranchised groups to build divisive affinity networks, and how sudden technological shifts are destructive yet thrilling. — 00:02:55
    • John says that, at least so far, as Hank's books have aged they feel more contemporary, which is astonishing. (hedged) — 00:02:55
  • 2022-12-23 · You Cannot Trust Yourself (Hank's End of the Year Worries) — Hank says he wrote his first book to show more clearly what the internet is actually like, and his second is more about what he thinks it is going to be like. — 00:00:00

2023

2024

  • 2024-04-19 · I Closed My Boob in a Door — Hank recounts that four years ago a post on the MenWritingWomen subreddit, with 5,100 upvotes, held up his novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing over the line about the main character closing her boob in a door. — 00:00:00
    • Hank shows the new German edition of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, out this week (week of 15 April 2024), asks viewers to tell their German friends, and thanks his German publisher for continuing to give the book life. — 00:01:56
    • Hank likes the tweet because it shows April's balancing act: seeking attention, status, influence and power while calling those who see her as powerful ridiculous, a silly girl things happen to. — 00:03:01
  • 2024-08-07 · Dear Hank and John Livestream! — Hank says his novel had a small discourse about its line on boobs getting slammed in doors, which he is happy to have as his discourse. — 00:12:33
    • Hank says he would not include that line if he did it over: it was not mission critical, and other things could have done its job. — 00:13:03
    • John says Hank's book feels as relevant now as when it was published, if not more. — 00:14:10
    • Hank recalls early feedback asking whether April should use a fictional platform instead of YouTube; he answered that if YouTube stopped mattering, none of the book would. — 00:14:38

2025

  • 2025-03-11 · Hank Green's Brother — John calls Hank's novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing one of his favorite novels ever. — 00:01:02
  • 2025-09-26 · I've Not Been Doing Well — Hank says one of the most important moments of his first novel for him, rarely noticed, is Maya correcting April: a problem will not solve itself but be solved by other people. — 00:01:58
  • 2025-10-24 · What Will Books Become? — Hank: After his first book went well, Hank pitched his publisher a monthly serialized next book sold only in bookstores, with parts needing physical places, to create an event; he was told it couldn't work. — 00:04:32
  • 2025-12-09 · Hank Green, from A to Z — John says An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Hank's first novel, was an instant number one New York Times bestseller, about an art student who late one night discovers a statue that might be alive. — 00:00:00
    • John calls A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor the wonderful and thrilling sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. — 00:00:29

2026

  • 2026-08-21 · Not (Just) Dunking on Jeff Bezos — Hank is certain valuing life by output is wrong; the third most-quoted passage of his first book says you will struggle to feel productive until you accept your own joy can be something you produce. — 00:07:48