The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

Novelist, podcaster, and YouTube star John Green was born in 1977 and spent his early childhood in Orlando, Florida, where he developed a distaste for all things that he regarded as “plastic,” including nearby Disney World. He went to private school in Alabama and developed a knack for winning Academic Decathlon contests. Over time, he discovered that he loves many of the over-commercialized, artificial creations foisted on US citizens, like Scratch ’n’ Sniff stickers and Diet Dr Pepper. After college, he married art curator and PBS producer Sarah Durst, and they moved to Indianapolis, a city he at first disliked but grew to love for its sense of community. His appreciation for absurd bits of Americana grew with his love for the Indy 500, casino gambling, and googling strangers.

The Anthropocene Reviewed is Green’s first non-fiction book. It debuted at number one on the New York Times best-seller list, as did many of his novels, including The Fault in Our Stars, which became a commercially successful movie as well. Green's other young adult novels include Turtles All the Way Down, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska, and An Abundance of Katherines. Much of Green’s prominence derives from his popularity as a YouTube podcaster: He has launched 11 such projects, including the comical Dear Hank and John and The Anthropocene Reviewed, from which the book of the same name derives.

Green has several mental health conditions, including anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and panic attacks. He can be awkward in person, hates most crowds (except those that give him a distinct sense of community), and loves being outside in nature. Green has had painfully debilitating bouts of viral meningitis and the extreme dizziness of labyrinthitis. These difficulties became grist for his writer’s mill and contribute to his wry, self-deprecating, wistful, and uplifting text.