What are your bookstore rituals? For example, where do you go first in a store?
I always go to the mystery section first. I love mystery novels. I’m always excited to see if my favorite mystery novelists have a new book out. I also go to the YA section every time I visit a bookstore to look for books by my friends.
Tell us about your favorite library from when you were a child.
I spent a lot of time in my childhood at the Orlando Public Library in Orlando, Florida. I loved that place. I couldn’t believe how many books were there. It was so exciting to be with that many books. Eudora Welty called reading “a sweet devouring,” and it did feel that way, like as much as I could read, there were always going to be more.
While researching your books, has there ever been a librarian or bookseller who was especially helpful?
For Everything Is Tuberculosis, I did so much reading at libraries, especially the Indianapolis Public Library here in my hometown. And the librarians were incredibly helpful at getting me access to all kinds of weird books about tuberculosis. There was also a bookseller in Chicago at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square who helped me through a plot problem once by recommending Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir books. I was trying to figure out how to make this part of An Abundance of Katherines feel like a mystery, and I told this bookseller, and he was like, “Oh, you should just read Philip Kerr. He knows how to do that better than anybody.” And he was right.
“I’d had years and years of only two or three people coming to my signings, and, suddenly, there were like 60 people, and I just couldn’t believe it.”
Do you have a favorite fictional bookseller or librarian?
There is a self-published novelist named Ann Swinfen who wrote a series of novels set in 14th-century Oxford. The first one is called The Bookseller’s Tale. The bookseller in The Bookseller’s Tale is my all-time favorite fictional bookseller. I’m a sucker for mysteries, especially, like, a cozy mystery, where it doesn’t feel like the stakes are too high. And also, selling books and illuminating books back in those days was hard, hard work. I mean, I know it’s still hard work to sell books, but back in the 14th century, your potential audience was pretty small.
Do you have a bucket list of libraries you’d love to visit but haven’t yet? What’s on it?
I’ve been very lucky to visit most of the libraries on my library bucket list, from the Amsterdam Central Library to the Seattle Public Library, but one that’s still on my list that I’d love to see sometime is in Austria. It’s called the Monastery Library of St. Florian. So pretty.
What is the most memorable bookstore or library event you’ve participated in?
I’ve been able to be part of so many amazing bookstore and library events over the years, and I’ve been so fortunate to have, you know, more than five people come to my signings, but that wasn’t always the case, and so I try to remember how incredibly lucky I’ve been. The very first time I had more than five people come to a library event was in 2007 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My brother was there. Maureen Johnson was there. And it was the most fun I have ever had in my life, because I’d had years and years of only two or three people coming to my signings, and, suddenly, there were like 60 people, and I just couldn’t believe it.
“I separate my living authors from my dead authors. So, when an author dies, I have to go do the sad process of moving them.”
What’s the last thing you bought at your local bookstore?
The last thing I bought at a local bookstore was The Power and the Glory, a book about the World Cup.
How is your own personal library organized?
I organize by genre, as defined by me, and then within that, by author name. So, because I have a lot of young adult books, for instance, I’ll split those up into lots of different categories, and that’s fun for me. I separate my living authors from my dead authors. So, when an author dies, I have to go do the sad process of moving them. It’s sort of a way to mark that occasion for me. I also have a larger-than-usual collection of books about boxing, because I used to be the boxing reviewer for Booklist, so I have a boxing section. And I have a larger-than-usual collection of books about tuberculosis, so I have a tuberculosis section.
Is the book always better than the movie? Why or why not?
I think the book is usually better than the movie, but occasionally the movie is better. Like, Die Hard is a better movie than the book it’s based on. I really like some of the movie adaptations of my books, so I may be a little biased, but I think the movie can be better than the book.
Bookstore cats or bookstore dogs?
Well, I am a dog person, but I have to say, in a bookstore, I do love a sleepy cat that just hangs around. And makes me sneeze, because I’m allergic.
What is your ideal post-bookstore-browsing drink or snack?
I like to go to the bookstore in the early evening or in the late afternoon, and my favorite bookstore in the world is The Book Cellar, where I wrote parts of my earliest books, and they have wine. And so I would say, probably against the advice of my publicist, that my favorite post-bookstore drink is a glass of wine.
Photo of John Green by Marina Waters.