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All statements about Penguin Books

123 statements about Penguin Books in 71 videos, by upload date.

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2007

2008

2011

  • 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
  • 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: It meant more because John's first job after college was as a temp at Booklist, where on his first day he retyped the speeches from the first Printz Award reception. — 00:00:24
  • 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John wrote the book at night and on weekends for three years with constant help from his friend Ilene Cooper, one of his bosses at Booklist and an author, who read about a dozen drafts. — 00:01:07
  • 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: The book wasn't called Looking for Alaska until John's friend Keir Graff came up with the title, for which John says he paid him two dollars. (playful) — 00:01:14
  • 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: Ilene and John sent the manuscript to Penguin, which agreed to publish it provided he revised extensively, more extensively than he imagined. — 00:01:22
  • 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: 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
  • 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: After the book came out and twelve people in a room chose it for the award, John was really happy, but part of him thought 'so what?'. — 00:02:24
  • 2011-03-09 · DANDY LIONS! It's Question Day — announcement: John says his new book comes out in almost exactly one year. — 00:00:54
  • 2011-03-09 · DANDY LIONS! It's Question Day — announcement: John says the novel is about two teenage cancer survivors obsessed with a reclusive novelist, and also about Swedish hip-hop and the meaning of life. — 00:00:57
  • 2011-03-09 · DANDY LIONS! It's Question Day — announcement: John confirms the novel is narrated by a girl, Hazel. — 00:01:07
  • 2011-03-09 · DANDY LIONS! It's Question Day — John says the novel has no title yet: he changes it about every day and all the titles are bad. — 00:01:09
  • 2011-03-28 · Participatory Geometry — announcement: John says he just learned his new book is definitely coming out in March, not in two days but the next March, and he should settle on a title soon. — 00:01:20
  • 2011-03-28 · Participatory Geometry — John says his original title was The Hectic Glow, after a Thoreau quote, but it is the rural juror of book titles: people mishear it as The Metric Snow or The Hectic Blow. (playful) — 00:01:55
  • 2011-03-28 · Participatory Geometry — John says he then considered Omnis Cellula e Cellula, but Penguin told him Latin doesn't smell like a bestseller, so he still has no firm title. (playful) — 00:02:14
  • 2011-04-20 · Tulipomania — John says he is really in Amsterdam, not before a green screen, for two months finishing his new book; the reason for Amsterdam will become obvious when you read it. — 00:00:03
  • 2011-04-25 · Meeting Greg Mortenson — John: A couple of years earlier, when Paper Towns came out, John was one of about eight authors, with Mortenson, at a Penguin dinner for some 200 young adult librarians at a library convention. — 00:00:24
  • 2011-04-25 · Meeting Greg Mortenson — John: In his two-minute talk John described his book as about Walt Whitman and imagining others complexly; Mortenson followed with a book about nearly dying and devoting his life to education in Afghanistan. — 00:00:50
  • 2011-04-25 · Meeting Greg Mortenson — John: Feeling his pee-joke book was outclassed, John remembered that Nerdfighters had helped rebuild a school in cyclone-ravaged Bangladesh and wanted to tell Mortenson. — 00:01:03
  • 2011-04-25 · Meeting Greg Mortenson — John: At the cocktail party John told the man he took for Mortenson about Nerdfighters' pond sand filters, Kiva loans and the school, talking for twelve minutes without letting him speak. — 00:01:33
  • 2011-04-25 · Meeting Greg Mortenson — John: The man answered that he was not Greg Mortenson: since nearly all the librarians were women, John had simply walked up to the white man, assuming he was Mortenson. — 00:02:00
  • 2011-04-25 · Meeting Greg Mortenson — announcement: John: Hank turns 31 on Hanko de Mayo, May 5; because John is desperately trying to finish his book, he outsources Hank's birthday to Nerdfighteria. — 00:02:42
  • 2011-04-29 · Peanut Butter Face Question Tuesday — John: Asked whether he should be writing his new book right now, John says yes, he should. — 00:03:19
  • 2011-05-13 · Winkels to the Left, Winkels to the Right: Thoughts from Places, Antwerp — announcement: The description says John spent the day working on the revision of his new novel, which comes out in March. — video description
  • 2011-05-18 · The Education Continuum WARNER CHILCOTTED — John says that in the last 24 hours he finished the big revision of his novel. — 00:00:04
  • 2011-06-06 · Men Running on Tanks and the Truth about Book Editors — John: The manuscript of John's new book arrived from New York with his editor and publisher Julie Strauss-Gabel's comments on the pages. — 00:01:09
  • 2011-06-06 · Men Running on Tanks and the Truth about Book Editors — John: After more than a year of revising the book together, John and Julie have reached the fun stage of notes on the manuscript, like how to spell 'stormtrooper'. — 00:01:18
  • 2011-06-06 · Men Running on Tanks and the Truth about Book Editors — John says that without Julie and, before her, his mentor and first editor Ilene Cooper, nothing anyone likes about Looking for Alaska would be in it. — 00:03:19
  • 2011-06-10 · Then I Took Off My Bra — announcement: John says he and Hank will go on tour in the United States when his new, as-yet-untitled but soon-to-be-titled book comes out. — 00:02:15
  • 2011-06-10 · Then I Took Off My Bra — John says the probable title of his new novel, and its central observation, were taken from a Nerdfighter, and thanks Nerdfighteria. (hedged) — 00:02:30
  • 2011-06-15 (said on 2011-06-14, implied) · Question Tuesday! Paula Deen Riding Me (and critical reading) — announcement: John: The title of John's new book is still not totally decided, so he can't say yet, but soon. — 00:01:14
  • 2011-06-29 · THE FAULT IN OUR STARS — announcement: John can finally reveal the title of his new novel: The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:00:00
  • 2011-06-29 · THE FAULT IN OUR STARS — announcement: John: The Fault in Our Stars is number one on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble; John thanks everyone who pre-ordered it. — 00:00:29
  • 2011-07-01 · Humping the Town — Hank says The Fault in Our Stars has been number one on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller charts four days running with almost no publicity. — 00:00:29
  • 2011-07-08 · Kill the Dollar Bill! — John thanks Nerdfighters for continuing to make The Fault in Our Stars a bestseller on Amazon and Barnes & Noble: 'you're made of awesome'. — 00:02:29
  • 2011-07-27 · 150,000 Autographs — announcement: John announces Penguin has moved The Fault in Our Stars forward five months, from May 1 to January 10, 2012. — 00:00:17
  • 2011-07-27 · 150,000 Autographs — John says Penguin told him it had watched the comments and Nerdfighters wanted the book before May, and credits their 'hardcore pre-ordering' for the earlier date. — 00:00:28
  • 2011-08-31 · How to Become An Adult — John: After college John worked a few months as a student chaplain at a children's hospital, then at Booklist, where 90% of his job was typing ten-digit codes; older coworkers helped him with grown-up things. — 00:01:37
  • 2011-08-31 · How to Become An Adult — John says Booklist colleague Ilene Cooper, author of 20+ children's books, agreed over lunch at the Cheesecake Factory that his vague boarding-school novel idea sounded great. — 00:02:03
  • 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
  • 2011-10-10 · Animal Mating and Librarian Talking — John says today is the last day he can make meaningful changes to The Fault in Our Stars, so he'd rather spend it with the book(s) than with Hank. — 00:00:00
  • 2011-10-19 · Question Wed — THE COVER OF THE FAULT IN OUR STARS! — announcement: John: With his publisher Julie Strauss-Gabel's permission, given two minutes earlier, John reveals the cover of The Fault in Our Stars and hopes viewers like it as much as he does. — 00:00:30
  • 2011-10-19 · Question Wed — THE COVER OF THE FAULT IN OUR STARS! — announcement: John: Excited by the fan-designed covers for The Fault in Our Stars, Penguin will let Nerdfighteria design the new cover of An Abundance of Katherines; one submission becomes the actual cover, maybe forever. — 00:01:02
  • 2011-10-19 · Question Wed — THE COVER OF THE FAULT IN OUR STARS! — ask: John asks viewers to submit covers via abundanceofcovers.com (linked in the doobly-doo), joking that the future of An Abundance of Katherines depends on it. — 00:01:02
  • 2011-10-21 · Signing Psychosis, BlizzCon, TFiOS, Awesome Adventures, and URLatron — Hank says the fan-cover project convinced a publishing company, for the first time in history, to put a book in bookstores with a cover designed by its fans. — 00:01:27
  • 2011-10-21 · Signing Psychosis, BlizzCon, TFiOS, Awesome Adventures, and URLatron — Hank: The project also convinced Penguin to take the cover of The Fault in Our Stars very seriously, which it did. — 00:01:56
  • 2011-10-28 · Reading Chapter One of The Fault in Our Stars — announcement: John: Instead of a real video, John reads the first chapter of The Fault in Our Stars as a live-show video, something he has long wanted to do. — 00:00:26
  • 2011-10-28 · Reading Chapter One of The Fault in Our Stars — John says the book is the story of Hazel and Augustus trying to come to terms with Hazel's opening soliloquy that everything will end in oblivion, and of their life together. — 00:27:15
  • 2011-11-16 · Top 5 Zombie Apocalypses OF ALL TIME — John's description apologises for uploading late: he is in Grand Haven, Michigan, recording an audio version of The Fault in Our Stars. — video description
  • 2011-11-21 · Old Man Narrates Young Girl — John: Before Chicago, John was at Brilliance Audio, his audiobook publisher, narrating The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:00:35
  • 2011-11-21 · Old Man Narrates Young Girl — announcement: John: There will be two audiobooks of The Fault in Our Stars: the real one narrated by Kate Rudd, available everywhere, and John's, only in a physical limited-edition box set from DFTBA. — 00:00:41
  • 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
  • 2011-11-25 · Chapter TWO of The Fault in Our Stars — announcement: John reads Chapter 2 of his new book The Fault in Our Stars aloud, thanking his publisher Penguin for allowing it. — 00:00:07
  • 2011-11-25 · Chapter TWO of The Fault in Our Stars — announcement: John says The Fault in Our Stars comes out on January 10th, in about 48 days, and hopes viewers like it. — 00:22:24
  • 2011-12-05 · 5 Worst Typos of History — John shows the finished copy of The Fault in Our Stars that came in the mail, one of the few unsigned copies. — 00:00:03
  • 2011-12-05 · 5 Worst Typos of History — John: Gaiman's Law held again: John found what he thinks is the book's only typo, in the author's note, immediately. (hedged) — 00:00:29
  • 2011-12-19 · Sharpie Face and Little Hank: The Project for Awesome's Aftermath — John shows the tour van and thanks his publisher Penguin for giving Hank hilariously small billing on it. (playful) — 00:01:56
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — John: On Wednesday morning John learned that a bookseller had prematurely shipped more than a thousand copies of The Fault in Our Stars to people who pre-ordered it. — 00:00:00
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — announcement: John: The book is not due out for three more weeks; for the past year Penguin and John worked hard so everyone could read it at the same time. — 00:00:00
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — John: Everyone who has read The Fault in Our Stars, John and Hank included, signed non-disclosure agreements; Penguin paid for an embargo and skipped the usual advance copies to critics, movie people and foreign publishers. — 00:00:30
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — John accepts that not every reader will avoid spoilers and that the shipping error was an honest mistake with no maliciousness. — 00:01:23
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — John called Hank, as he does when mad, and Hank reminded him that his readers care not just about his books but about each other. — 00:01:52
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — John: As word spread, more and more Nerdfighters on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook pledged not to read the book before January 10, or not to spoil it for the majority who receive it then. — 00:01:52
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — announcement: John: 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
  • 2011-12-23 · There Will Be NO SPOILERS!!! — John thanks Amazon and every independent bookstore for not shipping their pre-orders after the leak, which lets the January 10 publication date stand. — 00:02:50

2012

  • 2012-01-10 (said on 2012-01-09, implied) · The Fault in Our Stars — announcement: John says The Fault in Our Stars comes out today, January 10, 2012, though he is filming on Monday, January 9, because he is busy tomorrow. — 00:00:00
  • 2012-01-10 (said on 2012-01-09, implied) · The Fault in Our Stars — John says TFIOS grew from his work almost twelve years ago as a student chaplain at a children's hospital; he has been trying ever since to write a funny, honest story about it. — 00:00:28
  • 2012-01-13 (said on 2012-01-10, implied) · TFiOS PARTY! — Hank tells John he is really proud of him and of The Fault in Our Stars: every review has been fantastic, everyone on Amazon loves it, and Hank loves it. — 00:00:42
  • 2012-01-27 · In 'N' Out-Erview — announcement: Hank introduces John as the number one New York Times best-selling author of The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:00:51
  • 2012-01-27 · In 'N' Out-Erview — John: Asked how being number one feels, John calls it ridiculous, says he loves Nerdfighteria and that, much as he'd like credit, it has nothing to do with him. — 00:00:51
  • 2012-01-27 · In 'N' Out-Erview — Hank says Time Magazine said John was 'damn near genius', then teases him about the 'near'. — 00:01:27
  • 2012-03-20 · Sharpie Face Question Tuesday — John says The Fault in Our Stars is currently number 2 on the New York Times bestseller list, behind only Hugo Cabret, a book he really liked. — 00:01:41
  • 2012-03-27 · Wrong but Right: Thoughts from Places Amsterdam — John says the trip supported the publication of the Dutch edition of The Fault in Our Stars; he gave a series of interviews in the hotel library. — 00:01:13
  • 2012-06-05 · The Dangling Rope of Terror: It's Question Tuesday — announcement: John: Asked what happened to the An Abundance of Katherines cover contest, John says it is part of why he is going to New York: on Thursday (7 June 2012) he announces the winner and reveals the cover. — 00:00:31
  • 2012-06-12 · Chris Colfer, John Green, Mob Wives, and Jeffrey Eugenides: Thoughts from Places Book Expo — announcement: John was at BEA for interviews and signings and to reveal the new An Abundance of Katherines cover, designed by a 17-year-old longtime nerdfighter who then left for her prom. — 00:00:29
  • 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
  • 2012-11-13 · I Was a Child Poet. And a Bad One. — announcement: John announces that Amazon.com named The Fault in Our Stars one of the ten best books of 2012 overall, not just for teenagers, right behind Dave Eggers and ahead of Junot Díaz. — 00:00:05
  • 2012-11-20 · Great at Being Terrible: The Florence Foster Jenkins Story — announcement: John: To celebrate the first anniversary of The Fault in Our Stars, Penguin has rented Carnegie Hall for the brothers to have an evening of awesome of reading, talking and music. — 00:01:33
  • 2012-12-04 · Time for AWESOME — John says Time Magazine has just named The Fault in Our Stars first on its list of the top ten novels of 2012, ahead of Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, Junot Diaz and J.K. Rowling, and he is overwhelmed. — 00:00:00

2013

2014

  • 2014-01-21 · Are Poor Countries Doomed? — John says the Brazilian edition of The Fault in Our Stars, whose title he butchers in Portuguese, has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Brazil, more than in Germany or the UK. — 00:03:16
  • 2014-02-18 · 18 Great Books You Probably Haven't Read — announcement: John reports that The Fault in Our Stars is number one on the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists this week (week of 17 February 2014), which he calls bananas. — 00:00:01

2015

  • 2015-05-12 · Becoming Someone Else — ask: John: In a P.S., John says Penguin UK has a Fault in Our Stars-themed project raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust and asks UK and Ireland viewers to check it out. — 00:03:31

Also named in: On Writing, Looking for Alaska Turning 10, and Winning the Project for Awesome

2016

2017

  • 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
  • 2017-11-24 · The Bizarro History of Black Friday: (AND 2017 CENSUS!) — announcement: Hank: DFTBA has 500 signed copies of Turtles All the Way Down from Penguin, sold with a tuatara pin and a turtle sticker pack. — 00:02:17

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
  • 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
  • 2019-04-23 · 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: The Fault in Our Stars was very nearly titled 'The Sequel' or 'The Sequels'; in April 2011 emails Julie told John, politely, that it was not a good title. — 00:01:27
  • 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: 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

2021

  • 2021-04-02 · John's World Record — Hank: Signing an entire print run was not a thing before John decided it could be; it was hard, but John and the people at Penguin made it happen. — 00:03:00
  • 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

2022

2023

  • 2023-01-10 · Introducing: The Format — John notes The Fault in Our Stars came out 11 years ago today (10 January 2012) and calls it a strange 11 years. — 00:00:00
  • 2023-03-07 · What's the Deal with Paperback Publishing? — John: 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
  • 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
  • 2023-11-07 · NaFaDoYBIMSCoM — John completed a draft of The Fault in Our Stars in mid-December 2010 after attempting NaFaDoYBIMSCoM. — 00:02:14

2025

  • 2025-04-15 · Chatting with ... a U.S. Senator? — John explains the title writes against Shakespeare's line that the fault is not in our stars: there is much fault in our stars, bad luck and structural injustice. — 00:19:38
  • 2025-06-03 · My Lies — John says that before The Fault in Our Stars he confidently said on the channel his next book would be about kids on a desert island; he wrote most of it, but it had no reason for being, so he wrote the book that became The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:01:21
  • 2025-10-07 · Luck vs. Work vs. Skill vs. Privilege — John was especially lucky with The Fault in Our Stars: Nerdfighteria and his publisher backed it, adults were reading YA, Time called it the best book of the year, and the movie did well. — 00:03:16

2026

  • 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
  • 2026-07-07 · On the Death of the Author — John: In The Fault in Our Stars John invented Peter Van Houten, an author who meets a dying young reader, knowing readers knew the book was partly inspired by his meeting Esther Earl. — 00:04:25
  • 2026-09-22 · I Want You to Know Nothing About This — John recalls that when The Fault in Our Stars came out 14 years ago, a few hundred people got it a month early, and he was devastated, expecting the plot to leak online. — 00:03:14