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All statements about Looking for Alaska (novel)

301 statements about Looking for Alaska (novel) in 142 videos, by upload date.

Back to Looking for Alaska (novel).

2007

Also named in: December 4th: Question Tuesday!!!!

2008

  • 2008-01-08 · The Return of Question Tuesdays — John: Asked whether his two narrators combined would make his adolescent self, John says 'kinda', but notes differences: for one, he wasn't a good student in high school. (hedged) — 00:02:04
  • 2008-01-08 · The Return of Question Tuesdays — John: Asked when the Looking for Alaska movie will come out, John says he doesn't know; it's not in his hands. — 00:03:02
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John declares he is not a pornographer. — 00:00:11
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John learns his first novel, Looking for Alaska, published almost three years ago, is to be taught to 11th-grade English students at Depew High School near Buffalo. — 00:00:14
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John says the school wrote to parents with a permission slip: children of parents who agree read the book, others read a different book. — 00:00:35
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John reports that a few people without 11th-grade children call the book pornographic, say it will cause immoral thoughts and actions in children, and want no one to read it. — 00:01:00
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John says the issue is not about him, but being told his novel for teenagers is pornography makes him mad. (playful) — 00:01:17
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John defines pornography as designed to titillate and doubts any halfway normal person would find anything in his book arousing. (hedged) — 00:01:48
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John says the book's one frank sex scene is deliberately awkward and unerotic, written to contrast empty physical intimacy with the next scene's emotional connection. — 00:01:56
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John says the novel argues physical intimacy can never stand in for emotional closeness, so it argues against vapid physical interactions, not for them. — 00:02:20
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John says many Depew teachers, administrators and school board members are standing up for the book and for teachers' and parents' rights. — 00:03:22
  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — ask: John says he has written a letter defending the teachers and asks viewers to email their own letters to him to forward on. — 00:03:45
  • 2008-02-08 · QUESTION TUESDAYS (On Friday) — John reports many people attended Tuesday's (5 February 2008) Depew school board meeting on his book, which he appreciates, but procedure let none of them speak. — 00:00:00
  • 2008-02-08 · QUESTION TUESDAYS (On Friday) — John says the five people who did speak all opposed the book, and several of them had not read it. — 00:00:36
  • 2008-02-08 · QUESTION TUESDAYS (On Friday) — John quotes one objector's claim that he needn't read the book to judge it, and says the analogy shows why good English literature education is needed. — 00:00:36
  • 2008-02-08 · QUESTION TUESDAYS (On Friday) — announcement: John says there is another Depew board meeting on March 4th, with more information to come. — 00:00:36
  • 2008-02-08 · QUESTION TUESDAYS (On Friday) — John says Looking for Alaska is neither a great book nor the greatest book, but hopes it is good. (playful, hedged) — 00:02:06
  • 2008-02-08 · QUESTION TUESDAYS (On Friday) — John says the character Alaska is not simply based on a real person: in some ways she is based on him, in other ways on other people. — 00:02:36
  • 2008-02-26 · Best Wishes! — ask: John asks Nerdfighters in or near Depew, New York to attend the Tuesday, March 4th meeting on whether to keep Looking for Alaska in the Depew High School curriculum. — 00:01:43
  • 2008-04-21 · Belated Book-tacular Questions — announcement: John: On the effort to ban Looking for Alaska: the school board of Depew, New York, which John calls made of awesome, voted unanimously to keep it in the curriculum. — 00:01:52
  • 2008-07-01 · Live from LAX — John: Signing Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, John met one sweet-looking old lady who loved the first half of Looking for Alaska but said the second half fell apart. (playful) — 00:01:42
  • 2008-07-08 (said on 2008-07-07, implied) · Hank Tried to Kill Me With a Hammer — recommendation: John: To writers who can't finish their books, John offers little advice beyond 'just keep at it', noting it took him four years to finish Looking for Alaska. — 00:03:12
  • 2008-08-18 · This Video Comes in Threven Parts — Hank introduces the non-existent Nerdfighting Prize of the Day, a badge of honour for a deserving Nerdfighter, which he has been awarding in his head and sometimes in comments. (playful) — 00:00:35
  • 2008-08-21 · INTERNET SENSATION B$%CH — Hank awards today's non-existent Nerdfighter prize to fans seen in the report, identified only as 'Mrs. Pink Hair and DFTBA Trucker Cap' (one or two people, unclear). (playful) — 00:02:08
  • 2008-08-25 · Oh John Green, You're 31 — The description awards the non-existent Nerdfighter Prize of the Day to a fan for a cake called 'Looking for Alaska: A Cake'. (playful) — video description
  • 2008-09-04 · Paper Towns Tour Dates! — announcement: John announces an October 16 New York launch party for Paper Towns' release with Hank, their parents, the Yeti, Maureen Johnson and other authors; Julia Nunes is floated as a 'rumor'. — 00:01:12
  • 2008-10-06 · Berlin and Let it Snow (in Your Pants) — John: Among the presents John received in Minneapolis was his first copy of the Spanish translation of Looking for Alaska. — 00:00:00
  • 2008-10-06 · Berlin and Let it Snow (in Your Pants) — John: Speaking to high school students in a room holding every children's book published in the GDR, John says the headmaster brought a CD reflecting the roots of Looking for Alaska. — 00:01:21
  • 2008-11-03 · Hank and John from the Road — John: In Oklahoma City a man showed John a copy of Looking for Alaska he said was half eaten by a Hawaiian mongoose; John says he believed him. (playful) — 00:01:48
  • 2008-11-19 · Sharing Presents in Westport — John: Gifts include a shirt for Culver Creek Preparatory School, the school in John's novel Looking for Alaska. — 00:00:28
  • 2008-12-15 · Famous Last Words — John also dedicates the video to his first book, Looking for Alaska, which he says is about a kid who memorizes famous people's last words. — 00:00:06

2009

  • 2009-02-10 · Paper Towns Tastic Question Tuesday — John: Q's misimagining of Margo resembles Pudge's of Alaska; John argues that imagining someone as more than a person does them and ourselves a profound disservice. — 00:01:22
  • 2009-03-24 · Peeps! Prom! Puppy! — John: Featured photos include cakes (one a Looking for Alaska cover reading 'a cake'), John licking a cat, and remarkable Nerdfighter shoes. (playful) — 00:02:38
  • 2009-04-28 · 10 Book Reviews in 4 Minutes — announcement: Hank says John, bestselling author of Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, is writing another book, This Is Not Tom, released through weekly riddles. — 00:02:38
  • 2009-05-19 · Question Tuesday! — John explains the blank pages at the back of the Looking for Alaska hardcover: a printed book's page count must be a multiple of eight, so extra pages are added. — 00:00:50
  • 2009-06-01 · DFTBA Street Team In Your Pants — Maureen Johnson: As E. Lockhart sought a title for what became The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, Maureen, staring at John's cream cheese, proposed adding 'in your pants' to any title; Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines came first. (playful) — 00:02:00
  • 2009-06-30 · Nerdfighter MARRIAGE PROPOSAL — John: Asked whether his books are available in Spanish, John says yes: Looking for Alaska as Buscando a Alaska. — 00:00:39
  • 2009-08-18 (said on 2009-08-19, implied) · So Jokes: Video EP — Lianne Graham (quoted): Lianne Graham's song 'Looking for Alaska' addresses Alaska: the singer hopes she has escaped 'this labyrinth of suffering', recalls Thomas Edison's last words, and is still looking for her. (fiction) — 00:09:08
  • 2009-08-30 · 100 QUESTIONS ANSWERED!!!!!!! — announcement: John: Asked whether he will write a sequel to Looking for Alaska, John answers probably not. (hedged) — 00:01:15
  • 2009-11-01 · NaNoWriMo!!! — John's examples from revision: Miles' obsession with famous last words in Looking for Alaska, the feral-hog hunt in An Abundance of Katherines, and the cartography in Paper Towns. — 00:01:29
  • 2009-12-27 · How To Be a Nerdfighter: A Vlogbrothers FAQ — Hank says John is an award-winning author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns who has won awards including the Edgar and the Printz. — 00:00:49

Also named in: Before Looking for Alaska…, HAPPY JOHN DAY!!!

2010

  • 2010-02-19 · Henry's Pee and My Gut — In the description John says the pony's daisy with one petal removed is clearly a Looking for Alaska reference he missed until nerdfighters pointed it out. — video description
  • 2010-03-19 · Foreign John Green Books and the Ultimate Concern — John: Short on sleep, John vlogs from the floor among author copies of his books in foreign languages, such as Looking for Alaska in Japanese. — 00:00:00
  • 2010-03-19 · Foreign John Green Books and the Ultimate Concern — John: The Looking for Alaska line on the Italian edition's back, 'imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia', was said to John by Sarah on their first date. — 00:02:04
  • 2010-04-02 · Will Grayson, Will Grayson — John wrote the odd-numbered chapters and David the even ones; they have worked on the book for more than five years, since before Looking for Alaska was published. — 00:00:44
  • 2010-04-26 · Nerdfighters, They Named a PLANE After Us — ask: The description asks readers to email cover designs for Het Grote Misschien ('The Great Perhaps' in Dutch) to John, who says he will forward them to Lemniscaat. — video description
  • 2010-04-26 · Nerdfighters, They Named a PLANE After Us — announcement: John's Dutch publisher Lemniscaat is re-releasing Looking for Alaska ('Het Grote Misschien') and wants readers to design cover ideas; a liked idea could become the cover in the Netherlands. — 00:00:39
  • 2010-08-06 (said on 2010-08-04, implied) · Looking for Alaska at My High School — John: Being up anyway, John drove to his high school alma mater, Indian Springs School. — 00:00:16
  • 2010-08-06 (said on 2010-08-04, implied) · Looking for Alaska at My High School — John says Looking for Alaska is about a Florida boy obsessed with famous last words who leaves for an Alabama boarding school, and that he himself was once that boy. — 00:00:20
  • 2010-08-06 (said on 2010-08-04, implied) · Looking for Alaska at My High School — John says the novel is fiction but its setting is not: Culver Creek is almost inch for inch Indian Springs School as it was in 1995. — 00:00:39
  • 2010-08-06 (said on 2010-08-04, implied) · Looking for Alaska at My High School — John visits the concrete outcropping under the bridge over Bishop's Creek, known as the Smoking Hole both in Looking for Alaska and in real life. — 00:01:35
  • 2010-08-06 (said on 2010-08-04, implied) · Looking for Alaska at My High School — John: At the peak of his sentimentality John was stung by a bee on his left butt cheek, and he called Sarah to complain. (playful) — 00:02:23
  • 2010-08-20 · The Fox Hat IS REAL, but Are Zombies People? — John wears a fox hat, funny to readers of Looking for Alaska: he put something in a book and someone made it real. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • 2010-08-20 · The Fox Hat IS REAL, but Are Zombies People? — John: Downstairs shelves include author copies of his own books, desert island books, lexicography, child prodigies, Mark Twain, books about death, poetry, religion and conjoined twins. — 00:01:56
  • 2010-09-15 · Positive Pranking: The TP Edition — John says that in a Hollywood pitch meeting an executive described his first novel, Looking for Alaska, as 'Prank Academy with some sad bits'. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • 2010-10-08 · GEEKING OUT Over Dying Declarations — John says the narrator of his first book, Looking for Alaska, is obsessed with famous people's last words, an obsession John shares. — 00:00:26
  • 2010-10-08 · GEEKING OUT Over Dying Declarations — John reads the book's Rabelais entry, which says Rabelais' last words became more widely discussed after their use in his Printz Award-winning Looking for Alaska. (playful) — 00:00:26
  • 2010-10-08 · GEEKING OUT Over Dying Declarations — John corrects Looking for Alaska: he quoted Millard Fillmore's last words as 'the nourishment is palatable', but they were 'the nourishment is palpable'. — 00:01:54
  • 2010-12-22 · I Was on Jeopardy!!!! — John tells the contestant he is sorry she lost on Jeopardy!, thanks her, and awards her the non-existent Nerdfighter prize of the day. (playful) — 00:01:28

2011

2012

  • 2012-01-10 (said on 2012-01-09, implied) · The Fault in Our Stars — John says readers won't feel out of the loop without Looking for Alaska: unlike Harry Potter, his books have nothing to do with each other. — 00:01:30
  • 2012-06-05 · The Dangling Rope of Terror: It's Question Tuesday — John: Asked about Looking for Alaska being banned from several Tennessee high schools, John calls it bad: such bans used to make him really angry, now they just make him sad. — 00:00:40
  • 2012-07-20 · The Universe is Weird: A Song — announcement: Hank tells John that, after 385 weeks on bookstore shelves, Looking for Alaska was on the New York Times bestseller list for the first time last week (week of 9 July 2012). — 00:02:52
  • 2012-07-20 · The Universe is Weird: A Song — recommendation: Hank calls Looking for Alaska a remarkable book that deserves it and is becoming a classic, and tells viewers who haven't read it to get it. — 00:03:01
  • 2012-08-28 · In Which the Candle Dies — John says Looking for Alaska's original cover had only smoke; bookstore chains objected to cigarette smoke, Penguin confirmed it was, and so a candle was added. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • 2012-08-28 · In Which the Candle Dies — announcement: John shows the new box set, designed by Karen Kavett, with hardcovers of Looking for Alaska without the candle, the new Paper Towns design and Nerdfighter Sarah Turbin's Katherines design. — 00:00:29
  • 2012-08-28 · In Which the Candle Dies — John says he always sort of hated the candle and has spent seven and a half years proud of the book but hating it, so its removal is great news for him. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:29
  • 2012-10-16 · Burning Peeps, My OTP, and Velociraptors: It's Question Tuesday — announcement: John says the box set comes out on October 25th, with a limited edition in which both The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska are signed; link in the description. — 00:01:43
  • 2012-11-06 · Terrible at Frenching: My Spicy Summer Camp Story — John jokes the school board election is the most important because it decides whether Looking for Alaska is banned from classrooms; there he is a one-issue voter. (playful) — 00:00:55
  • 2012-11-27 · Nerdfighter Book Recommendations: A Gift Giving Guide for Nerdfightastic Readers — recommendation: John: For Looking for Alaska fans, John recommends E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks for the boarding-school parts, and A.S. King's Everybody Sees the Ants and Gayle Forman's If I Stay for the other parts. — 00:02:26

2013

  • 2013-01-15 · An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall — John says after years of bad stories about a chaplain like himself, he wrote Looking for Alaska, about grief, and An Abundance of Katherines, about not being special. — 00:51:58
  • 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: Two weeks later John went back to Booklist, and within six months handed his mentor Ilene Cooper 40 single-spaced pages of what became Looking for Alaska. — 00:02:38

2014

  • 2014-02-21 · Ranting about Books — Hank says Looking for Alaska's description avoids spoilers, but one edition prints spoiler-laden reader questions on the page facing the author bio, which readers may check first. (playful) — 00:00:43
  • 2014-03-18 · Is the American Dream Real? — John recalls that when he and Sarah moved to New York in 2005, a Craigslist mover told him that in New York anyone who can work, can work. — 00:00:01
  • 2014-03-18 · Is the American Dream Real? — John: About a year later, at a publishing conference, the same man, now in international sales at a huge publishing company, greeted John as 'Looking for Alaska'. — 00:00:30
  • 2014-09-02 · MORTIFICATION — John recalls his first book signing after Looking for Alaska came out drew two people, and he read them a line about parties attended by two deeply uninteresting people. (playful) — 00:00:42
  • 2014-09-16 · It's Question Tuesday! Cheesy Jokes, Paper Towns Movie, and Dinosaur Butt Brains — announcement: John says he does not know much about the Looking for Alaska film. (unsure) — 00:00:54
  • 2014-09-16 · It's Question Tuesday! Cheesy Jokes, Paper Towns Movie, and Dinosaur Butt Brains — John: Asked what he would change in his books, John says 'deadpan' appears about twelve times in Looking for Alaska, probably eleven times too many. (playful, hedged) — 00:01:11
  • 2014-10-14 · A Minor Crisis — John says that ten years ago today he finished the last edits on Looking for Alaska, hoping only for a paperback; it never crossed his mind it would still be in print ten years on. — 00:02:51
  • 2014-10-14 · A Minor Crisis — announcement: John announces a 10th anniversary edition of Looking for Alaska with a Rodrigo Corral cover, a big Q&A, a fancy introduction and scenes from early drafts, available to pre-order via the doobly-doo. — 00:03:03
  • 2014-10-14 · A Minor Crisis — John says the book has surprised him over and over in ten years and thanks everyone who has read and shared it so generously. — 00:03:13
  • 2014-10-14 · A Minor Crisis — John: Noting Looking for Alaska came out ten years ago (second grade to senior year), John says he is having a smidge of a crisis about being old and asks older Nerdfighters for advice. (playful) — 00:03:23

2015

2016

2017

  • 2017-05-30 · What Should We Keep? — John has one photo of himself at 23, from his year in Chicago: an intense, loving but doomed relationship, starting and restarting the book that became Looking for Alaska, and the year when, in a borrowed Emily Dickinson line, a plank in Reason broke and he dropped down and down. — 00:00:05
  • 2017-06-27 · UNBOXING — John's first thought on learning Dutton would publish Looking for Alaska was that he would be a '0-525'; he is proud still to be published by Dutton. — 00:01:56
  • 2017-07-18 · Accio Decade Hallows — John: Fourth: in January 2006, engaged and walking in New York with his parents to register for wedding presents, John got a call that Looking for Alaska had won the Printz Award; his dad photographed the moment. — 00:01:24

2018

  • 2018-04-17 · John Green Answers Your John Green Questions — John lives in Indianapolis, where TFIOS and Turtles All the Way Down are set; earlier he lived in Chicago (part of An Abundance of Katherines), Birmingham, Alabama (Looking for Alaska) and Orlando, Florida (Paper Towns). — 00:00:35
  • 2018-05-11 · Looking for Alaska Movie (BUT BETTER) and YouTuber Things — announcement: Hank says John's first book, published two years before John proposed making video blogs on YouTube, kept doing better and, now 13 years old, is becoming an eight-episode Hulu miniseries. — 00:00:01
  • 2018-05-11 · Looking for Alaska Movie (BUT BETTER) and YouTuber Things — Hank: A Hulu series is very cool and happens to basically no one, but Hank tells John nothing they have done beats finding joy in making stuff, a great community to make it in, and maybe some faith in humanity. (hedged) — 00:03:31
  • 2018-08-14 · Question Tuesday: Secrets & Primes — announcement: John says Looking for Alaska is to be adapted into a Hulu limited series; it's still happening, he has read the great first-episode script, and that's all he knows. — 00:00:29
  • 2018-08-14 · Question Tuesday: Secrets & Primes — John adds that, just as he doesn't cast movies, he does not cast Hulu shows. (playful) — 00:00:38
  • 2018-08-14 · Question Tuesday: Secrets & Primes — John adds that Paper Towns has 32 chapters counting the prologue, and Looking for Alaska 60 counting the author's note; saying it out loud, it's a little weird. — 00:01:27
  • 2018-08-14 · Question Tuesday: Secrets & Primes — John says books take him long to write so he entertains himself with inside jokes: having overused 'deadpan' in Looking for Alaska, he has used it exactly once in every book since. — 00:01:38
  • 2018-10-02 · How Much Do You Love Each Other? It's Question Tuesday — Hank's favorite quote from a John Green book is 'imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia', which he calls really good. — 00:01:00
  • 2018-10-02 · How Much Do You Love Each Other? It's Question Tuesday — John says he stole that line from his wife. — 00:01:00
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — announcement: John says it was announced yesterday (30 October 2018) that Kristine Froseth and Charlie Plummer have been cast as the leads in the eight-episode Hulu adaptation of Looking for Alaska. — 00:00:02
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John recalls that Looking for Alaska was published in March 2005, when he was 28 and living in Chicago. — 00:00:15
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says he and Sarah, dating almost a year, got engaged that summer on the day she learned she would attend graduate school in New York City; he had thanked 'the lovely Sarah Urist' in the book. — 00:00:20
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says it was unclear how they could afford two years in New York: the book was selling okay, but not quit-your-job okay. (playful) — 00:00:33
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says Hollywood suddenly took interest: in one day he was paid three times his annual salary for the movie rights, which let them move to New York and bought him time to write. — 00:01:10
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says the deal had no reversion clause, so the studio would own the rights forever, and he understood what he was doing. — 00:01:26
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says Josh Schwartz, who makes TV with Stephanie Savage, was first attached to write the screenplay and wrote an excellent script, but the studio wanted changes, mostly to make it less like the book. — 00:01:38
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says no one would fund it, so the Alaska movie was dead until 2014, when The Fault in Our Stars became a very successful movie. — 00:02:05
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says the studio hired great screenwriters and a director, then cancelled the movie at the last minute; heartbroken and angry, he told them he was out. — 00:02:26
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says a producer friend proposed that Josh and Stephanie, long the book's champions, make it with more time than a film, so it became an eight-episode Hulu limited series. — 00:02:49
  • 2018-10-31 · The Looking for Alaska Thing — John says this time the series is really going to happen, he thinks. (hedged) — 00:03:17

2019

  • 2019-01-01 · How to Make Goals, Not Resolutions — announcement: John: That will be hard because the Looking for Alaska Hulu series will probably film this year (2019), as will a movie of Let It Snow, which John wrote with Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle. (hedged) — 00:02:37
  • 2019-01-15 · On Burning Resentment — John: From just after his 24th birthday John spent most nights and weekends on the novel that became Looking for Alaska: Booklist by day, review reading after work, then writing until 11 or midnight. — 00:00:00
  • 2019-01-15 · On Burning Resentment — John hasn't read Looking for Alaska in almost 15 years, but gathers that almost none of what people like about it was in the resentment-fueled drafts. (hedged) — 00:02:26
  • 2019-01-15 · On Burning Resentment — John thinks he needed those drafts to see what was wrong with Miles's and his own way of looking at others; to finish, Miles and John had to grow up and find a warmer, less bright fuel, which took years. — 00:02:26
  • 2019-01-15 · On Burning Resentment — John: Eventually John worked on Looking for Alaska as a gift for other people rather than a document of his attempted cleverness. — 00:02:55
  • 2019-01-18 · Should You Burn Dirty Fuel? — Hank: Against John's point that he couldn't write the good parts of Looking for Alaska until he found a healthier fuel, Hank thinks it is possible to do good things with unhealthy fuels. — 00:02:26
  • 2019-03-12 · Going Home with Alaska and Miles — announcement: John says the eight-episode Hulu adaptation of his first novel, Looking for Alaska, is supposed to begin shooting soon. (hedged) — 00:00:00
  • 2019-03-12 · Going Home with Alaska and Miles — John says a writer must let a book go once it is in print: it then belongs to the people who read it, a wonderful and painful surrender. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-03-12 · Going Home with Alaska and Miles — John: Looking for Alaska was different: like Miles, John was a Florida kid at an Alabama boarding school; the story is fictional, but he began it at 23 and saw himself in Miles and others. — 00:00:58
  • 2019-03-12 · Going Home with Alaska and Miles — John says he wrote the book because he wanted to go home to the fall of 1993, smoking under the bridge with people he loved, loving peers ferociously and without fear. — 00:01:27
  • 2019-03-12 · Going Home with Alaska and Miles — John wrote the book to attempt time travel: to imagine things differently and make different choices, hoping fiction might let him back into the home time and loss had taken. — 00:01:56
  • 2019-04-23 · untitled — John's friend Keir came up with the title Looking for Alaska because John's ideas, 'White Flowers and Warm Malt Liquor' and 'Famous Last Words', were so bad. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-04-23 · untitled — John: Looking for Alaska was the first novel John tried to title 'More Light Than Heat', after a Hamlet line about love that blazes with more light than heat. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • 2019-06-18 · Question Tuesday with Miles and the Colonel: Manolo! — John thanks everyone involved in the Looking for Alaska show for working so hard and caring so much. — video description
  • 2019-06-18 · Question Tuesday with Miles and the Colonel: Manolo! — Charlie Plummer read the book at 15 and for the first time passionately wanted to be part of something and play a specific character; now he is living that. — 00:00:43
  • 2019-06-18 · Question Tuesday with Miles and the Colonel: Manolo! — Denny Love had not read the book before he got the audition; he read it in less than a day and knew the story was special. — 00:00:43
  • 2019-06-18 · Question Tuesday with Miles and the Colonel: Manolo! — a guest: A guest's favorite scene in the book is the barn scene, where you get to know everybody: confiding your truths to close people is hard because you must trust them not to judge. — 00:02:52
  • 2019-06-18 · Question Tuesday with Miles and the Colonel: Manolo! — recommendation: Charlie Plummer picks Bon Iver's '29 #Strafford APTS' as the song that captures the atmosphere of Looking for Alaska. — 00:03:20
  • 2019-06-18 · Question Tuesday with Miles and the Colonel: Manolo! — recommendation: John's pick: his Looking for Alaska song is 'Love Love Love' by the Mountain Goats; Charlie Plummer says it is on his playlist too. — 00:03:20
  • 2019-06-18 · Question Tuesday with Miles and the Colonel: Manolo! — announcement: a guest: The Looking for Alaska show comes out on Hulu on October 18: eight episodes, all released at once and bingeable. — 00:03:41
  • 2019-07-23 · What to Love and How — John: When Steven Gerrard lifted Liverpool's fifth European Cup in 2005, John was in Alabama celebrating his engagement to Sarah; his first novel was six weeks old and he was 27. — 00:00:57
  • 2019-09-10 · Another Contender in the Room — John recalls that on their first date Sarah said 'imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia', which he promptly put into Looking for Alaska and still thinks is the book's best line. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — announcement: John: The eight-episode adaptation of John's first novel, Looking for Alaska, comes out on Hulu in eight days. — 00:00:00
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — John: In the 14 years since the book came out, John has made many public announcements of a movie or TV show that then fell through, which is often the way of Hollywood. — 00:00:00
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — announcement: The description says John will be at a Looking for Alaska event on October 16 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale: a first-episode preview and discussion with the showrunners, Timothy Simons, Ron Cephas Jones and John. — video description
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — announcement: The description announces the tie-in edition with the series cast on the cover and a new audiobook read by Wil Wheaton. — video description
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — John says this time the series is going to happen, he thinks. (hedged) — 00:00:29
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — John: When the book came out in 2005, John never imagined it would be in print 14 years later, still finding new readers who see its payphones and pre-vaping nicotine as historical fiction. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — a guest: A cast member says they read the book in one sitting and called their mother at three in the morning from a hotel room, crying. — 00:01:27
  • 2019-10-15 · I'm Having a Lot of Feelings — John: At 5 a.m. in an airport, John is on his way to Los Angeles to promote the Looking for Alaska show and has a lot of feelings, neither good nor bad. — 00:00:00
  • 2019-10-15 · I'm Having a Lot of Feelings — announcement: John says the Looking for Alaska show comes out on Friday or Saturday and its reviews so far have been really good. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-10-15 · I'm Having a Lot of Feelings — John reports that Vulture called the Looking for Alaska show the rare adaptation that improves upon the original. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-10-15 · I'm Having a Lot of Feelings — John reports that Hypable said the show's commitment to the heart of the book makes it a wonderful experience for Green fans and newcomers alike. — 00:00:58
  • 2019-10-15 · I'm Having a Lot of Feelings — John did not make the show, but remembers waiting for Turtles All the Way Down reviews two years ago with constant nausea, so he is happy and relieved for its makers. — 00:00:58
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John says Hank's writing video took him back to his first book signing, on March 5, 2005 at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois, days after Looking for Alaska came out. — 00:00:00
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John: Three people came, one of them John's boss at Booklist, who generously pretended to be a stranger; the store had set up about 40 chairs and a podium. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John read a passage including the line about a party attended only by two deeply uninteresting people, thereby insulting the few who came. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John: For his first three years as a writer John's signings drew zero to five people, even after Looking for Alaska won the Printz Award; crowds reached double digits only in 2008. — 00:00:58
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John says the TV adaptation of Looking for Alaska has just come out and is really wonderful; per Rotten Tomatoes it is the freshest adaptation of his work. — 00:01:41
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John: Watching it took John back to writing the first draft of Looking for Alaska alone in a small furnished Chicago apartment, recovering from what would now be called a mental health crisis. (hedged) — 00:01:41
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John says he wrote every night trying to work out how to live with guilt that can't be excused and how catastrophic it is to romanticize or essentialize people you claim to love. — 00:02:10

2020

  • 2020-04-07 · I am an artist. — John: While revising the novel that became Looking for Alaska, John told Sarah he was trying to be a writer; she replied that he was writing, so he was a writer. — 00:01:05
  • 2020-11-03 · Alaska for Looking — John: After a March live show fundraiser, his last experience of the old normal, someone whose name John doesn't remember gave him Alaska for Looking: Looking for Alaska's whole text in alphabetical order. — 00:00:29
  • 2020-11-03 · Alaska for Looking — John last read Looking for Alaska in 2004, at 26; he doesn't enjoy rereading published work, since he can't change anything and there are other books to read. — 00:00:58
  • 2020-11-03 · Alaska for Looking — John: Sixteen years on, John doesn't feel qualified to comment on Looking for Alaska, but finds Alaska for Looking fascinating. — 00:01:27
  • 2020-11-03 · Alaska for Looking — John: Writing Alaska, John was obsessed with symmetry: the first part of the book had to have exactly as many days as the second. — 00:01:56
  • 2020-11-03 · Alaska for Looking — John: To serve that symmetry he made 'remembered' appear exactly one more time than 'forgotten'. — 00:02:26
  • 2020-11-03 · Alaska for Looking — John: The alphabetized book ends 'Zen. Zero. Zipped. Zoo' (four times): strangely lovely and wrenching for readers, and not a bad goodbye to that story. — 00:03:24
  • 2020-12-31 · Auld Lang Syne: The Anthropocene Reviewed — John sent Amy three short essays; she liked one and had him record it for her show on Chicago public radio station WBEZ, his first time reaching such a large audience. — 00:04:57
  • 2020-12-31 · Auld Lang Syne: The Anthropocene Reviewed — John: Amy's book came out months before Looking for Alaska; then Sarah got into graduate school at Columbia and they moved to New York, and John and Amy kept in touch. — 00:12:20

2021

  • 2021-09-14 · I do this every. single. tuesday. — John wrote parts of Looking for Alaska on lunch breaks, weekends and in book margins, writing six weeks every night and then not at all for two weeks to play FIFA 2002. — 00:01:15
  • 2021-11-30 · Vlogbrothers REUNITED AT LAST — John says he knows as little about how to write the book he is currently writing as he knew about writing Looking for Alaska, 18 years ago. — 00:03:24
  • 2021-12-14 · MAKE. BELIEVE. — John: In 2003, while working on the story that became Looking for Alaska and first becoming friends with Sarah, John learned from her the old line that all writing is rewriting. — 00:00:00
  • 2021-12-14 · MAKE. BELIEVE. — John deleted about 95% of the draft he wrote in 2003 on the way to writing Looking for Alaska. — 00:00:29

2022

  • 2022-03-22 · Motivation in Hard Times — John says that fuel worked: he wrote late at night after work and all weekend, and his book was published, won awards and sold its movie rights. — 00:00:58
  • 2022-05-03 · My Religion and My Banned Books — John says his books, especially Looking for Alaska and Turtles All the Way Down, have lately been removed from US libraries and schools for purported obscenity. — 00:00:00
  • 2022-08-30 · How to Buy Good Art for Less Than $100,000,000 — John's favorite artwork at home is his mom's painting of the La-Z-Boy where he wrote Looking for Alaska; it brings him joy and solace, and he hopes viewers find art that does the same. — 00:02:55
  • 2022-09-28 · How My Book Became a Hit with Elderly People — John calls this, like much of traditional publishing, wildly antiquated: it may have made sense in 2005, but readers now rightly expect to read in whatever format they want. — 00:00:56
  • 2022-12-20 · The Best Books Get Better — In a channel comment John says he was very interested in This Side of Paradise while writing Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, and is still fond of its rhythmic prose though it feels dated. — creator comment

2023

2024

2025

  • 2025-01-21 · Do Audiobooks Count As Reading? — John says his first book, Looking for Alaska, came out almost 20 years ago, when audiobooks were mostly called books on tape or CD and came in boxes. — 00:00:12
  • 2025-01-21 · Do Audiobooks Count As Reading? — John: When his editor said Looking for Alaska would get an audiobook, John was thrilled mostly for the $1,000 fee, but also because an actor would perform his book, the closest he expected to get to an adaptation. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • 2025-03-18 · ITS ALL HAPPENING — John recalls that nothing happened when Looking for Alaska came out: no TV, he went to work, came home and had a glass of wine with Sarah. (hedged) — 00:01:23
  • 2025-07-01 · What #1 New York Times Bestseller Actually Means — In a comment John adds that Looking for Alaska did eventually make the list, in 2014, nine years after it was first published. — creator comment
  • 2025-07-01 · What #1 New York Times Bestseller Actually Means — In a comment John says library copies don't count for the lists, but when his first novel sold under 5,000 copies, about 2,500 went to libraries; he urges support for libraries. — creator comment
  • 2025-07-01 · What #1 New York Times Bestseller Actually Means — John says his widely reviewed, award-winning first novel Looking for Alaska never came close to the list until the success of The Fault in Our Stars years later. — 00:01:56
  • 2025-10-07 · Luck vs. Work vs. Skill vs. Privilege — John says Looking for Alaska has lasted over 20 years not because it was the best YA book of its year but because Nerdfighteria happened, the great luck of his professional life. — 00:03:16
  • 2025-10-21 · Is Book Publishing Dying? An Author's Perspective — John says there are more independent bookstores in the US now than when Looking for Alaska came out in 2005, and more ways to support them online, such as Bookshop.org. — 00:01:59
  • 2025-12-16 · John Green's Brother — John reports that PEN America announced Looking for Alaska, his quiet young adult novel about grief, is the most banned book in the US over the last four years. — 00:00:58
  • 2025-12-16 · John Green's Brother — John finds this weird because he wrote the book, or at least some past version of him did. — 00:00:58
  • 2025-12-16 · John Green's Brother — John says the coordinated effort to ban Looking for Alaska and hundreds of other books has never been more intense. — 00:00:58
  • 2025-12-16 · John Green's Brother — John finds it very strange that many people assume him to be a pornographer when he thought he was writing a novel about radical hope and how we live with guilt. — 00:01:27
  • 2025-12-16 · John Green's Brother — John is most grateful to the librarians and teachers on the front lines of the battle for intellectual freedom who still share Looking for Alaska and other books despite challenges. — 00:01:56

2026

  • 2026-01-20 · Am I ... Good? — John has not reread his first novel, Looking for Alaska, in about 22 years; asked about it, he says he doesn't know, it was half his life ago. — 00:00:29
  • 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — John says Looking for Alaska turns 21 in two weeks. — 01:22:02
  • 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — announcement: John launches a signed mystery book perk: a signed copy of one of his books, such as Turtles All the Way Down, Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, The Anthropocene Reviewed or Everything Is Tuberculosis. — 08:08:39
  • 2026-02-15 · Project for Awesome 2026 part 5! — John: When readers email him questions about Looking for Alaska, John cannot answer: he wrote it 22 years ago and has no memory of what happens in it, but is grateful they keep it alive. (playful) — 02:56:02
  • 2026-02-24 · Risk Is a Privilege — John: On luck, John says a different Printz committee in 2005 might have chosen another book over Looking for Alaska, and his career would look very different. (hedged) — 00:01:27
  • 2026-03-03 · The Best Fan Mail I Ever Received — John's favorite fan mail: a high school freshman wrote that Looking for Alaska left them unsettled, with a feeling they had never felt before. — 00:00:33
  • 2026-03-31 · I've Been Keeping a Secret… — John says his first novel, Looking for Alaska, was just banned in every single school in Utah. — 00:02:26
  • 2026-03-31 · I've Been Keeping a Secret… — John finds it hard not to take personally: one of the people behind the ban recently told him he is a bad person, and he is pretty sure he is not. — 00:02:26
  • 2026-07-14 · On the Road Again — John: At his first signing, in Chicago in 2005 for Looking for Alaska, two people came, one his boss pretending to be a stranger; John then read a passage that managed to offend them both. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • 2026-07-28 · 'Are You John Green?' — John: The first time John was recognized for his work came before YouTube: a young woman on a New York City train asked if he was John Green, said she'd read Looking for Alaska, and got his autograph. — 00:01:27

Also named in: Should I Salinger…