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Rodrigo Corral

book designer · in 48 videos (2011–2026)

Designer of the covers of The Fault in Our Stars, which Hank calls one of the best of the decade, and Turtles All the Way Down. He also designed the cover and endpapers of the 10th anniversary edition of Looking for Alaska.

Videos by year: 2011: 22 · 2012: 7 · 2013: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2026: 2

Threads

Also named in the threads: Turtles All the Way Down: announcement and publication of John's novel (2017)

Often together

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

Julie Strauss-Gabel (2) · The Fault in Our Stars (3) · Looking for Alaska (novel) (2)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2011

  • 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
  • 2011-03-28 · 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
  • 2011-04-20 · 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
  • 2011-06-10 · 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
  • 2011-06-29 · THE FAULT IN OUR STARS — announcement: John can finally reveal the title of his new novel: The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:00:00
  • 2011-07-01 · 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
  • 2011-07-27 · 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
  • 2011-10-19 · 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
  • 2011-10-28 · 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
  • 2011-11-25 · 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
  • 2011-12-05 · 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
  • 2011-12-23 · 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
  • …and 25 statements more in 2011 — all statements of 2011

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
    • 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 · also in: TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH
  • 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
    • 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
    • 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
  • 2012-11-13 · 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
  • 2012-12-04 · 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

  • 2013-01-15 · An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall — John says none of those books addressed what he saw at the hospital, which left him feeling only nihilism; then he became friends with Esther Earl and became a father. — 00:53:28
    • John says Henry's birth showed him he'll be Henry's dad as long as either lives; that love is in this sense stronger than death was very important to TFIOS. — 00:53:48
    • John says Esther, a Nerdfighter reader very sick with cancer when they met in 2009, taught him what Augustus learns: the real hero's journey goes from strength to weakness. — 00:54:11
    • John says the realization that Esther's short life was still a good, rich and full life was central to The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:55:41
  • 2013-02-19 · Doing Things, On the Importance of — John's novel The Fault in Our Stars returned to number one on the New York Times bestseller list, 56 weeks after it came out. — 00:00:00
  • 2013-04-23 · DOCTOR GREEN — John says The Fault in Our Stars, fifteen months after publication, is back at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, passing Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, now No. 2. — 00:02:22

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
  • 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

2015

  • 2015-01-13 · On Writing, Looking for Alaska Turning 10, and Winning the Project for Awesome — announcement: 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
    • John says the edition adds his new introduction, deleted and revised scenes showing how he and Julie worked on the book, a Michael Cart essay, and thirty pages of reader Q&A. — 00:01:57

2016

2017

  • 2017-08-15 · Very Hard to Desclibe — announcement: John reveals the cover of Turtles All the Way Down, designed by Rodrigo Corral, who did the cover of The Fault in Our Stars; he calls it beautiful. — 00:00:01

2018

2019

  • 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

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
  • 2023-11-07 · 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

  • 2026-07-07 · 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