Get To Know John Green

We’re counting down the days until the big On the Same Page, opens a new window author event.  

Unfortunately, Tommy Orange is no longer able to attend the event due to personal reasons. However, we are happy to announce that John Green will be joining Kaveh Akbar on April 30. John Green and Kaveh Akbar are good friends, and we have no doubt that this will be an amazing night. 

John Green is the bestselling author of young adult fiction and adult nonfiction. His works include YA novels The Fault in Our Stars, opens a new window, Looking for Alaska, opens a new window and Turtles All the Way Down, opens a new window, and his nonfiction essay collection, The Anthropocene Reviewed, opens a new window. Green’s newest book, Everything Is Tuberculosis, opens a new window, explores the history of tuberculosis and advocates for increased treatment access and healthcare reform. 

Let’s get to know a little more about John Green! 

John Green’s books have both literary and commercial success.  

• John Green has won several literary awards, including a Michael L. Printz Award for his first young adult novel Looking for Alaska, a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book for his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, and the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best YA Mystery for his third book, Paper Towns. 
• The Fault in Our Stars is the most widely known of his young adult novels and received wide praise and topped the New York Times Children's Paperback Bestseller list for several weeks. 
• Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska, Turtles All the Way Down and The Fault in Our Stars all have screen adaptations.  

John Green is Internet-famous!  

• In 2007, John Green and his brother Hank Green began to communicate with each other almost exclusively through their YouTube videos on their shared Youtube channel, Vlogbrothers (originally called Brotherhood 2.0). The videos spawned a community of people called “nerdfighters,” who fight for intellectualism and to “decrease the overall worldwide level of suck.” Nerdfighters have raised millions of dollars for various causes and are still an active community today. 
• In 2011, John and Hank Green launched an educational YouTube channel called Crash Course, opens a new window on which John, Hank and a range of other hosts teach humanities and science courses. Crash Course has over 10.7 million subscribers and 1.2 billion views. 

John Green is a passionate advocate for global health.  

• In 2024, he led a successful campaign to pressure pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson to stop reported patent abuses that were inflating the cost of a lifesaving tuberculosis drug. He has also raised more than $35 million, opens a new window for a Partners in Health project to reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone, which until recently, opens a new window had the highest rate, opens a new window of women dying in childbirth in the world. 

We’re so excited to welcome John Green and Kaveh Akbar to Michigan on April 30. If you haven’t had a chance to read the books yet, you can place a hold on Martyr!, opens a new window and Everything Is Tuberculosis, opens a new window.