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Looking for Alaska (novel)

novel · in 146 videos (2007–2026)

Looking for Alaska is John's first novel, about a Florida boy obsessed with famous last words who goes to an Alabama boarding school; it won the Printz Award. It has been repeatedly challenged: the most challenged book of 2015, and recently banned in every school in Utah.

By: John Green · Adapted as: Looking for Alaska (miniseries), Looking for Alaska (film) · Within: Alaska Young, Miles Halter, Culver Creek Preparatory School, Chip Martin, Lara Buterskaya, Takumi Hikohito · Spin-offs: Alaska for Looking

Videos by year: 2007: 15 · 2008: 15 · 2009: 12 · 2010: 9 · 2011: 12 · 2012: 7 · 2013: 2 · 2014: 5 · 2015: 7 · 2016: 6 · 2017: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2019: 11 · 2020: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2025: 6 · 2026: 9

Also known as: LFA

Threads

Also named in the threads: 'In your pants' suffix game (2007) · John catalogues his home library (2007) · Hank finds and reads John's childhood book 'It Just Isn't Fair' (2007) · Brotherhood 2.0 scavenger hunt (2007) · Will Grayson, Will Grayson: publication (2010) · John asks Nerdfighters near Depew to attend the school board meeting on Looking for Alaska (2008) · Paper Towns Tour (2008) · This Is Not Tom: John's story told through weekly online riddles (2009) · The Fault in Our Stars: writing, title and publication (2011) · Humpy Hank: Nerdfighter animations of Hank humping things (2011) · John points viewers to pre-order The Fault in Our Stars (2011) · John asks Nerdfighters to submit cover designs for An Abundance of Katherines (2011) · An Abundance of Katherines fan cover contest (2011) · John's depression at 24 in Chicago: leave from Booklist, home to Orlando, and watching Harvey · John asks older Nerdfighters for advice on his crisis about getting old (2014) · John: Looking for Alaska may never be made into a movie (2016) · Everything Is Tuberculosis: John's nonfiction book about tuberculosis (2024) · P4A 2026 edition

Same name, different thing

Looking for Alaska (song by Liane Graham)

Often together

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

An Abundance of Katherines (27) · Paper Towns (31) · Sarah Urist Green (32) · Chicago (city) (12) · The Fault in Our Stars (20) · Julie Strauss-Gabel (6) · New York City (13) · Will Grayson, Will Grayson (5) · Rodrigo Corral (2) · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book) (8)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2007

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

2008

  • 2008-01-30 · I Am Not A Pornographer — John declares he is not a pornographer. — 00:00:11
    • 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
    • John defines pornography as designed to titillate and doubts any halfway normal person would find anything in his book arousing. (hedged) — 00:01:48
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • 2008-02-26 · 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
  • 2008-08-18 · 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
  • 2008-09-04 · 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
  • …and 19 statements more in 2008 — all statements of 2008

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
  • 2009-04-28 · 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
  • 2009-08-18 (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
  • …and 2 statements more in 2009 — all statements of 2009

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

2010

  • 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
    • 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 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • 2010-08-20 · 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • …and 6 statements more in 2010 — all statements of 2010

2011

  • 2011-01-17 · Cheating Cheaters of Cheatery: The Amazing Story of Brazil's Cotton War with the U.S. — John says Brazilian Nerdfighters petitioned Brazilian publishers to publish Looking for Alaska in Portuguese, and it worked. — 00:00:00
  • 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: The most important moment of John's professional life came five years ago, almost to the day: the call saying Looking for Alaska, his first novel, had won the Printz Award. — 00:00:16
    • When Penguin bought it, the book wasn't about a boy who memorizes famous last words; much of what readers like, from the Great Perhaps to the labyrinth, came out of the revisions. — 00:01:34
    • About four years in, John had a finished manuscript, but it would be wrong to say he wrote the book: Ilene, his editor Julie Strauss-Gabel, his wife and others all wrote parts of it. — 00:01:52
  • 2011-05-05 · IT'S HANKO DE MAYO!! — John: Borrowing a line he took from his wife for his first novel, that imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia, John says he can't wait to see what Hank does with 31. — 00:02:27
  • 2011-06-15 (said on 2011-06-14, implied) · Question Tuesday! Paula Deen Riding Me (and critical reading) — announcement: John: Paramount also owns the movie rights to Looking for Alaska, not yet made; John says maybe they'll make one of them someday. (hedged) — 00:00:51
  • 2011-08-26 · Will He Kiss You? Am I a Muggle? It's Question Friday. — John says Sarah has contributed tons to his writing: the line 'imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia' in Looking for Alaska, the pranks in Paper Towns, and hugely to The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:03:05
  • 2011-08-31 · How to Become An Adult — John: In early 2002 John brought Ilene 40 single-spaced pages; over the next two years she worked with him to turn them into the novel that became Looking for Alaska. — 00:02:32
    • John says Ilene is the only reason Looking for Alaska exists, he has a job writing books, and there is Brotherhood 2.0 or Nerdfighteria. — 00:02:46
  • 2011-11-21 · Old Man Narrates Young Girl — John: In 2004 Penguin's lawyers decided the character Alaska quoted too much of an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem; fair use allowed only two lines and John couldn't afford to pay the estate. — 00:02:06
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — John does not want the book spoiled for anyone; even Looking for Alaska, almost seven years old, should not be spoiled, since thousands bought it this week (week of 19 December 2011) without knowing what it is about. — 00:00:53
    • The Fault in Our Stars has been with John in some form for more than a decade; he wants it out on January 10, for reasons Looking for Alaska readers may know. — 00:02:21
  • …and 18 statements more in 2011 — all statements of 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
  • 2012-08-28 · 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • …and 1 statement more in 2012 — all statements of 2012

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
    • 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 — 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • …and 1 statement more in 2014 — all statements of 2014

2015

  • 2015-01-13 · On Writing, Looking for Alaska Turning 10, and Winning the Project for Awesome — John says it has been ten years since his first novel, Looking for Alaska, was published. — 00:00:26
    • John announces a new super fancy edition of Looking for Alaska out today, with fifty pages of bonus content and really nice paper, now in bookstores. — 00:01:13
    • John says the new edition has a beautiful cover and endpapers designed by Rodrigo Corral, plus a small, astonishingly expensive feature he always dreamed of (shown on screen). — 00:01:33
  • 2015-02-03 (said on 2015-01-30, implied) · Beards, Birds, and the Paper Towns Release Date: Question Tuesday! — John: Asked a spoiler-blanked question about Alaska in Looking for Alaska, John says he doesn't know; for him the question is whether we can live hopeful, thoughtful lives despite ambiguity. — 00:00:34
  • 2015-02-24 · Who I Was in High School — John shows his favourite fan mail ever, from 2006, about Looking for Alaska: the reader felt something that was neither the urge to throw up nor to take a crap. (playful) — 00:00:19
  • 2015-03-10 · Travel Tips (and Paper Towns Movie Updates) — John says Looking for Alaska, his first book, came out 10 years ago and its movie rights have been owned by Paramount ever since. — 00:00:58
    • John says a Looking for Alaska movie now seems like it might actually happen because the team has gotten back together. (hedged) — 00:01:03
    • John announces that Scott Neustadter and Mike Weber, who wrote The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns, will write the Looking for Alaska script. — 00:01:09
  • 2015-06-30 · Some News — John: More than ten years ago John sold the film rights to his first novel, Looking for Alaska, and he has often tried to get them back since. — 00:02:24
    • A big part of John never wanted a Looking for Alaska movie made, because the story is very personal to him and matters to many readers. — 00:02:32
    • Weber and Neustadter, screenwriters of the TFIOS and Paper Towns films, have written a Looking for Alaska script, and Becca Thomas, director of Electric Children, has been hired to direct, so the film will probably happen. (hedged) — 00:02:58
    • John says he is now excited about the prospect of a Looking for Alaska movie, words he never thought he would say. — 00:03:19
  • …and 10 statements more in 2015 — all statements of 2015

2016

  • 2016-01-19 · The Looking for Alaska Movie, Davos, and Hufflepuff Shade: It's Question Tuesday — John says he sold the Looking for Alaska movie rights more than ten years ago, has tried many times to buy them back, attempts to make the film keep falling apart, and he is no longer involved. — 00:02:02
    • John says the Looking for Alaska movie may never happen: he hopes that will change someday but doesn't expect it to. (hedged) — 00:02:34
  • 2016-03-29 · My New Book, Marriage Advice, and Hamilton: 50 Snapchat Questions Answered! — announcement: John says there is sadly no news on the Looking for Alaska movie. — 00:02:26
  • 2016-04-12 · On the Banning of Looking for Alaska — John reports that the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom has released its list of the ten most challenged books, and Looking for Alaska was the most challenged book of 2015. — 00:00:01
    • John says what usually happens is that a parent shows an administrator one page of the novel and the book is banned without any objector having read more than that page. — 00:00:57
    • John says the next scene is more sensual and passionate but less explicit, so in context the novel pointedly argues that emotionally intimate kissing can be more fulfilling than emotionally empty oral sex. — 00:01:18
    • John says teenagers are critically engaged, thoughtful readers: they don't read Looking for Alaska and decide to have oral sex, or The Outsiders and join a gang, or Divergent and jump onto trains. — 00:01:45
    • John says he doesn't think Looking for Alaska is pornographic or that its readers find it titillating. (hedged) — 00:02:04
    • John says it should not be up to him whether any book is in a school or library: he is not a teacher or librarian, the highly trained, criminally underpaid professionals employed to decide. (hedged) — 00:02:09
  • 2016-08-02 · Beckoning Lovely — John: In 2002, while John worked at Booklist, Amy emailed him; they corresponded, she asked for a two-minute piece for WBEZ, and he wrote an essay that night and recorded it. — 00:00:17
    • John recorded dozens of essays for WBEZ and a few for NPR's All Things Considered over the next years, which helped him get into publishing and sell Looking for Alaska. — 00:00:40
  • 2016-11-17 · Decathlons, Pretension, and the Weirdest Animal I've Met: It's Question Thursday — John says the Looking for Alaska line "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia" is not his: Sarah said it on their first date; he wrote it on a napkin and used it, with her permission. — 00:00:49
  • …and 5 statements more in 2016 — all statements of 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
    • 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
    • John adds that, just as he doesn't cast movies, he does not cast Hulu shows. (playful) — 00:00:38
  • 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
  • 2018-10-31 · 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • …and 8 statements more in 2018 — all statements of 2018

2019

  • 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • 2019-06-18 · 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
  • 2019-10-08 · 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
  • 2019-10-15 · 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
  • 2019-11-01 · 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • …and 29 statements more in 2019 — all statements of 2019

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
    • 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
    • Sixteen years on, John doesn't feel qualified to comment on Looking for Alaska, but finds Alaska for Looking fascinating. — 00:01:27
    • 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
    • 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 · also in: We're here because were here., John's Review of Auld Lang Syne
    • 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
  • …and 1 statement more in 2020 — all statements of 2020

2021

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

  • 2023-03-07 · What's the Deal with Paperback Publishing? — John's first novel, Looking for Alaska, was published in hardcover almost exactly 18 years ago. — 00:00:00
    • In 2005 John's whole goal for Looking for Alaska was to sell enough copies to reach paperback, which would keep it in print a couple more years. — 00:01:27
    • Looking for Alaska sold about 6,000 copies in its first year, made it to paperback, and 18 years later is still in print. — 00:01:56
    • John says people now expect to read Looking for Alaska however they want: a $20 hardcover, $13 paperback, $12 audiobook or $11 e-book. — 00:01:56
    • John says reading in one's preferred format makes readers likelier to enjoy and recommend a book, which is why Looking for Alaska is still in print: it is good for authors too. — 00:02:26
  • 2023-04-18 · goodbye to my friend — John got better, returned to work, reviewed hundreds more books, and wrote Looking for Alaska under the guidance of Bill's wife Ilene Cooper; it won the Printz Award. — 00:01:36
  • 2023-10-17 · My Next Book — John: This takes John back to 2001 and 2002, when at 23 he wrote exactly what he wanted, which became Looking for Alaska. — 00:03:16
  • 2023-12-24 · John and Hank Hanging Out but they Keep Getting Younger and More Pixelated — both: Asked whether they have real jobs: Hank runs the environmental technology site EcoGeek; John is an award-winning author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns. — 02:17:44

2024

  • 2024-02-06 · The Truth of How Books Become Movies — John says the Looking for Alaska show was brilliant but didn't sell a lot of books. — 00:03:24
  • 2024-08-07 · Dear Hank and John Livestream! — John says the Looking for Alaska plot hinges on a payphone, which will read like historical fiction and may limit future readers, but he cannot fix it. — 00:13:44
  • 2024-08-27 · How The Internet Is Rigged — John: In 2007 John wouldn't even hold up Looking for Alaska on camera; by 2012 he reblogged every piece of Fault in Our Stars fan art with a link to buy the book. — 00:03:24
  • 2024-09-25 · You have no chance to survive make your time. — John sets the scene: mid-2005 at the American Library Association in Chicago; Looking for Alaska had just been published and he was a production editor at Booklist. — 00:00:00
  • 2024-10-22 · My New Book: Everything Is Tuberculosis — John says the book comes out just after the 20th anniversary of Looking for Alaska; told then he'd write nonfiction about TB, he'd first have been glad to still be writing, then surprised. (hypothetical, hedged) — 00:03:37
  • 2024-12-10 · On Writing — John says the book is very different from Looking for Alaska or The Fault in Our Stars: nobody falls in love, and it is nonfiction rather than fiction. — 00:00:31
    • John says that dream has largely come true: 20 years after first publication Looking for Alaska is still in print, and many of his books are read in schools. — 00:01:11
  • 2024-12-17 · About THAT Scene in Looking for Alaska — In a channel comment John says his new book Everything Is Tuberculosis describes a world far more obscene than Looking for Alaska but won't be banned because it has no sex. — creator comment
    • John says that according to PEN America, Looking for Alaska, which he wrote, is the second most banned book in the United States. — 00:00:00
    • John says the novel's teenagers smoke, drink and behave self-destructively because books exist not as moral screeds but as tellers of truths. — 00:00:29
    • John says the book is banned not for smoking or drinking but because of one one-page scene in which two teenagers engage in oral sex. — 00:00:29
    • John says that read as a novel, Looking for Alaska is plainly not about sexual arousal or prurience but about grief and loss. — 00:03:24
  • …and 7 statements more in 2024 — all statements of 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
    • John says the coordinated effort to ban Looking for Alaska and hundreds of other books has never been more intense. — 00:00:58
    • 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
    • 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
  • …and 1 statement more in 2025 — all statements of 2025

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
    • 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
    • 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

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