Sometimes, I take your questions from comments, and I answer them.

Q. What do you think of writers who have a formula, and write, for instance, a book a year, a la Danielle Steele?
A. Well, these days writing only one book a year seems downright quaint. (James Patterson, for instance, writes four or five books a day.) I have no problem with people who write the same book over and over again, but I'm glad I don't have their job. (I should add that many great books have been written in less than a year, and that not all prolific writers are formulaic. See, for instance, Joyce Carol Oates.)

Q. What makes a book literary? Is it the style it's written in, the language, the timelessness? What exactly does this mean?
A. Good question. The only answer I can think of is that you make a book literary (or not). You are ultimately the person who engages with a novel's symbols and themes as well as its characters and story. If this happens, the book is literary. If it doesn't, it isn't.

Q. What's new with Paper Towns?
A. If you click that link, you can see a silly little video. (In unusually high quality!)

Q. Do you know where you and Hank are going to be touring and organizing Nerdfighter Events this fall?
A. No. When we do know, I will tell you OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Do not worry. You will not be underinformed when it comes to my tour schedule. I will repeat it so many times that you will know it like you once knew your state capitals.

Q. How long does it take you to read a book as long as Looking for Alaska? (OMFG NEW COVER!)
A. Two four-hour reading sessions, I would say, although the internet is making me dumber.

Q. The paperback for An Abundance of Katherines will only cost four bucks? (OMFG NEW COVER!)
A. No. It costs less than four bucks! (Although not much less.)

Q. Did you get Willy from a breeder or a shelter?
A. We got Willy from a family who bred a litter of Westies to give to their adult children, but then two of their kids deployed overseas with the military.

Q. Do you still watch Lonelygirl15?
A. No, but Brotherhood 2.0 would never have happened if it hadn't been for LG15, so I'm very grateful to that show and the community that built up around it in those first few weeks.

Q. How do you say Buhfriedo?
A. Well, it is a made-up word, but I say Buh-FREE-doe.

Q. What's the weirdest job you've ever had?
A. The one I have now is pretty weird. The graveyard shift at Steak 'n Shake was also fairly odd.

Q. What is the first book you want to read to your children?
A. I always said that when I had a kid, I would immediately read him/her Absalom, Absalom in its entirety. It's a book that teaches an infant two important lessons: 1. The past is not dead--the world you've just entered is "peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts." Also, 2. Only Faulkner can get away with so many adjectives and so few commas.