roadside America. Speaking of which, Roadside America (roadsideamerica.com) has for decades been a wonderful guide to the world’s largests and smallests. We used it in college, and I use it still, infuriating my kids with side trips to, say, the office building shaped like a picnic basket. More recently, Atlas Obscura (atlasobscura.com and, in book form, Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders) has become an indispensable resource. Eric Grundhauser’s Atlas Obscura article on the ball of paint was very helpful to me. Finally, a special word of thanks to ArcGIS StoryMaps article “Big Balls,” by Ella Axelrod, which contains many wonderful pictures and also some magnificent subheadings, like “Big Balls: An Overview” and “Balls of Various Composition.”
Sycamore Trees
This review references two of my all-time favorite books: Jacqueline Woodson’s devastating and perfectly wrought If You Come Softly and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Among its many gifts to me, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek introduced me to Herodotus’s story of Xerxes and the sycamore. I learned of the so-called Pringle Tree on a visit to Pringle Tree Park in Buckhannon, West Virginia. I first read the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem “Not So Far as the Forest” in her 1939 book, Huntsman, What Quarry?
“New Partner”
“New Partner” appears on the Palace Music album Viva Last Blues. I first heard the song because of Ransom Riggs and Kathy Hickner, who heard it because of Jacob and Nathaniel Otting. Kaveh Akbar’s “The Palace” was first published in the New Yorker in April of 2019.
Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance
This review would’ve been utterly impossible without help from the online community Tuataria, especially Ketie Saner, who translated a lot of German for me and tracked down all kinds of leads. I would never have learned the story of the young farmers without the dogged reporting of Reinhard Pabst in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. In a 2014 article, Pabst collected other research about the young farmers as well as accounts of the men from their surviving descendants. I am also immensely grateful for Richard Powers’s novel Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance. Powers’s books have been with me for twenty years, and they always seem to find me where and when I need them. A 2014 conversation (archived online at srf.ch) between Christa Miranda and Sander researcher Gabriele Conrath-Scholl was also helpful to me in learning about the photograph. The John Berger quote is from his book About Looking. I’m also indebted to Susanne Lange’s book August Sander in the Photofile series, to the Sander collection August Sander: Face of Our Time, and to the 2013 collection August Sander: People of the 20th Century, edited by Susanne Lange and Gabriele Conrath-Scholl.
Postscript
I’ve had the same German editor (Saskia Heintz at Hanser) and translator (Sophie Zeitz) since my first book was published in 2005. One of the joys of having my books translated is seeing the titles change. In German, The Fault in Our Stars became Das Schicksal ist ein mieser Verräter, which translates to something like Fate Is a Lousy Traitor. Fate really is a lousy traitor, and I love that title, as I love the German title of this book. But the best title of any of my books in any language is the Norwegian translation of The Fault in Our Stars. It’s called Faen ta skjebnen—or Fuck Fate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Green is the author of Looking for Alaska; An Abundance of Katherines; Paper Towns; Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan); The Fault in Our Stars, and Turtles All the Way Down. His books have received many accolades, including a Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and an Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the writer and host of the critically acclaimed podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed. With his brother, Hank, John has co-created many online video projects, including Vlogbrothers and the educational channel Crash Course. He lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. You can visit John online at johngreenbooks.com.