When The Fault in Our Stars came out, we were able to release a limited-edition audiobook version narrated by me along with a DVD featuring videos of me talking about the book, a ticket to a concert featuring The Hectic Glow, a Hectic Glow wristband, and postcards featuring scenes from the book. I’m delighted to announce that a new edition of this audiobook and DVD box set is now available for preorder at dftba.com. (It will look just like what you see above, only the wristband is a light blue.) So if you want to hear me read you the book, now you can. This is possible because of support from Penguin and my real audiobook publisher, Brilliance Audio, so thanks to them.
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When The Fault in Our Stars came out, we were able to release a limited-edition audiobook version narrated by me along with a DVD featuring videos of me talking about the book, a ticket to a concert featuring The Hectic Glow, a Hectic Glow wristband, and postcards featuring scenes from the book.

I’m delighted to announce that a new edition of this audiobook and DVD box set is now available for preorder at dftba.com. (It will look just like what you see above, only the wristband is a light blue.)

So if you want to hear me read you the book, now you can.

This is possible because of support from Penguin and my real audiobook publisher, Brilliance Audio, so thanks to them.

1. Shailene Woodley is a brilliant actress and Golden Globe nominee. I cannot think of any 18-year-old actress who has received the kind of critical acclaim that she has (she also won an Independent Spirit Award). She auditioned for The Fault in Our Stars not because she needs the part (I mean, she’s in the new Spider Man movie, for God’s sakes) but because she loves the book. Her depth of understanding were immediately obvious in the audition and for me there could be no one else to play Hazel. (There were a bunch of really good auditions, but Shailene just understood Hazel as I imagined her.) I am not particularly concerned with physical looks; Hollywood can fix that stuff. (Remember when Nicole Kidman became Virginia Woolf?) I’m concerned with whether she can embody the voice and experience and life of Hazel. She can. 2. Ansel Elgort is also a huge fan of TFiOS (it is, in fact, his favorite book). He was a high school basketball player who also happens to be a very intellectual guy. Most importantly, when he auditioned, he became Augustus. Watching him audition with Shailene, he was just Gus and she was just Hazel. He understood Gus, and clearly had a very deep and thoughtful relationship with the book. Honestly, I’m a bit confused as to how you can dislike an actor whose work you have definitionally never seen, since his first movie isn’t out yet. 3. Novelists do not cast movies, so these were not my decisions (although I did have a lot of input). But I’m defending them because I think they’re both perfect for their parts (and I’d tell you if I felt otherwise). 4. There seems to be some concern that Ansel and Shailene are playing siblings in a different movie. I guess I can understand that, but they’re actors. They can play different roles. They’ll look different and act different and be different. I mean, no one watched Silver Linings Playbook and thought, “When did Katniss move to the suburbs of Philadelphia?” If the movie works, you’ll sit down in the theater and you won’t say, “Oh look it’s Shailene Woodley,” or, “Oh, look, it’s Tris from Divergent.” You’ll say, “Holy wow Hazel Grace.”
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1. Shailene Woodley is a brilliant actress and Golden Globe nominee. I cannot think of any 18-year-old actress who has received the kind of critical acclaim that she has (she also won an Independent Spirit Award).

She auditioned for The Fault in Our Stars not because she needs the part (I mean, she’s in the new Spider Man movie, for God’s sakes) but because she loves the book. Her depth of understanding were immediately obvious in the audition and for me there could be no one else to play Hazel. (There were a bunch of really good auditions, but Shailene just understood Hazel as I imagined her.)

I am not particularly concerned with physical looks; Hollywood can fix that stuff. (Remember when Nicole Kidman became Virginia Woolf?) I’m concerned with whether she can embody the voice and experience and life of Hazel. She can.

2. Ansel Elgort is also a huge fan of TFiOS (it is, in fact, his favorite book). He was a high school basketball player who also happens to be a very intellectual guy. Most importantly, when he auditioned, he became Augustus. Watching him audition with Shailene, he was just Gus and she was just Hazel. He understood Gus, and clearly had a very deep and thoughtful relationship with the book. Honestly, I’m a bit confused as to how you can dislike an actor whose work you have definitionally never seen, since his first movie isn’t out yet.

3. Novelists do not cast movies, so these were not my decisions (although I did have a lot of input). But I’m defending them because I think they’re both perfect for their parts (and I’d tell you if I felt otherwise).

4. There seems to be some concern that Ansel and Shailene are playing siblings in a different movie. I guess I can understand that, but they’re actors. They can play different roles. They’ll look different and act different and be different. I mean, no one watched Silver Linings Playbook and thought, “When did Katniss move to the suburbs of Philadelphia?”

If the movie works, you’ll sit down in the theater and you won’t say, “Oh look it’s Shailene Woodley,” or, “Oh, look, it’s Tris from Divergent.” You’ll say, “Holy wow Hazel Grace.”

Absolument Moderne: Why I like this cover

absolumentmoderne:

image

Hi folks,

I thought I’d take a minute to let you know why I think the cover design for John’s new book The Fault in our Stars is brilliant. I am almost as dismayed by the negative responses to the cover as I was impressed by the amazingly wonderful designs submitted by many of you earlier…

In light of the coverflipping discussion on tumblr:

It’s worth remembering that when I announced the cover for The Fault in Our Stars, everyone hated it. 

“The design is too minimalistic and everyone does judge a book by its cover.”

“This just feels so bland and unimaginative.”

“No one likes the cover John.”

“After all the nerdfighteria designed covers on Fishingboatproceeds, this cover is hideous, so bleeh, so uninspired, I am going to paste a high quality print of one of the best fan created covers on my preordered copy. 3rd graders have done better covers in art class. In fact I ask an elementary art teacher friend of mine to get her best students on this project. TFIOS deserved a better dust jacket.”

These are comments from my announcement of the cover, which was met with such widespread disgust that I enlisted my lovely wife to defend the cover on her tumblr in hopes of quieting the storm. There are literally thousands of negative comments about the cover in the comments for that video. In six and a half years, no other vlogbrothers video has ever received such negative feedback.

I’ve said many times over the last 15 months that The Fault in Our Stars, while it is dedicated to my friend Esther Earl, is not about her. Esther’s story—her true, powerful, funny, painful story—belongs to her and to her family, and I am so excited that it’s going to be told in this amazing book, which comes out in January, 2014 and is available for preorder RIGHT NOW at bn.com and amazon.  This Star Won’t Go Out will include diary entries and sketches from Esther, and you’ll all finally get to see what a lovely writer she was. There will also be writing from Lori and Wayne, Esther’s parents, and an introduction by me. PREORDER!
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I’ve said many times over the last 15 months that The Fault in Our Stars, while it is dedicated to my friend Esther Earl, is not about her.

Esther’s story—her true, powerful, funny, painful story—belongs to her and to her family, and I am so excited that it’s going to be told in this amazing book, which comes out in January, 2014 and is available for preorder RIGHT NOW at bn.com and amazon. 

This Star Won’t Go Out will include diary entries and sketches from Esther, and you’ll all finally get to see what a lovely writer she was. There will also be writing from Lori and Wayne, Esther’s parents, and an introduction by me.

PREORDER!

penguinteen: Breaking news! Shailene Woodley (The Descendents) is going to play Hazel in the film adaptation of John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars!  I am very excited about this. Here’s the thing, tumblr: Shailene Woodley loves The Fault in Our Stars. She really does, and in her audition, she just was Hazel—at least to me. You can read what Josh (the director) had to say about it in the article above, but for me her commitment to the book and deep understanding of Hazel make her the perfect choice.
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penguinteen:

Breaking news! Shailene Woodley (The Descendents) is going to play Hazel in the film adaptation of John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars! 

I am very excited about this.

Here’s the thing, tumblr: Shailene Woodley loves The Fault in Our Stars. She really does, and in her audition, she just was Hazel—at least to me. You can read what Josh (the director) had to say about it in the article above, but for me her commitment to the book and deep understanding of Hazel make her the perfect choice.

fallapatorius:

WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALLLL

image

(in case you don’t know a lot of the collectors editions were misprinted)

Yeah, so I learned about this on vacation. Many of the Barnes and Noble exclusive anniversary edition of TFiOS were misprinted and contain a portion of the Q&A in the middle of the book. (This Q&A should appear at the end of the book.) So what should you do? You should return the book to the store from which you bought it or else contact bn.com customer service and get yourself a correct edition, which has been printed and should be in stores very soon. 

I am really sorry about this. It was a mistake at the printer, and they are very sorry about it as well, but I want to be clear that no one at Penguin or B&N screwed up. These kind of things happen occasionally, but usually not on this large of a scale, and I know it’s a huge inconvenience. All the misprints should be off store shelves, and the fixed books will be available in the next couple days.

Q:There are a few Tumblr users making a fuss about the "my thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations" quote being plagerised from Elias Canetti. Did you? Copyright laws confuse me.

jrrtolkien-deactivated20130203

I have never read Elias Canetti, but after some googling, it seems like the Canetti quote is, “His head is made of stars, but not yet arranged into constellations.” (This is presumably a translation from German, so I can’t speak to the exact quote.)

That’s a great line, but it’s about something entirely different. I assume it’s about the intellectual experience of adolescence, whereas Augustus’s line in The Fault in Our Stars is about illness and fatigue and not being able to express himself as clearly as he wants to.

Neither Elias Canetti nor myself thought up the idea that constellations are a way of constructing meaning and organization from a disorganized and arbitrary universe. I’m sure neither of us is the first to use that idea in fiction, either. Anyone who claims their fiction is wholly original is lying, but this is not plagiarism. It’s two similar-but-not-at-all-identical things arising independently, as happens all the time in writing (and elsewhere).

For example: another line from the The Fault in Our Stars is, “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once.” This is similar to a line from The Sun Also Rises in which a character is asked how he went bankrupt and answers, “Two ways: Gradually and then suddenly.” This line I actually have read and was conscious of when I wrote the line in TFiOS, but it still isn’t plagiarism. Nor is it plagiarism when I wrote “So it goes” in TFiOS even though Slaughterhouse Five made that sentence famous.

Calling a writer a plagiarist is a very serious accusation, so I want to be very clear: I have never plagiarized.

becbecause: missmellieryan: becbecause: missmellieryan: That’s the thing about ham, it demands to be eaten. My thoughts are hams I cannot fathom into sandwiches I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of eating ham. ‘It’s a metaphor, see: You put the ham right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to be delicious.’ “And in that moment, I swear we are ham.”  Wait. Wrong book.
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becbecause:

missmellieryan:

becbecause:

missmellieryan:

That’s the thing about ham, it demands to be eaten.

My thoughts are hams I cannot fathom into sandwiches

I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of eating ham.

‘It’s a metaphor, see: You put the ham right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to be delicious.’

“And in that moment, I swear we are ham.” 

Wait. Wrong book.

(via roxinpunch)

Source: missmellieryan