Young-adult

There is a particular kind of magic in watching a writer build an entire universe out of a single summer house, a stack of old love letters, and the ordinary ache of growing up. Jenny Han has done exactly that, not once but twice, and in doing so she has become one of the most quietly powerful storytellers in American popular culture. Born on September 3, 1980, in Richmond, Virginia, to Korean parents, Han grew up as what she has often described as a bookish, dreamy child who found comfor...

John Michael Green was born there on August 24, 1977, but his story really begins somewhere less glamorous: a hospital chaplaincy where he sat with dying children and learned, in the most unglamorous way possible, how ordinary people carry extraordinary pain. That experience would later become the emotional engine of a career that has made him one of the most recognizable authors in America, and one of the internet’s most unlikely teachers. From Chaplain to Chronicler Before Green was a...