John Green: ‘I devoured the Sweet Valley High books in the 1980s’

The American author on being inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, coming late to Jane Austen, and the brilliance of Robert Penn Warren My earliest reading memory I remember learning to read with dull stories about Jane going up a hill, but my earliest thrilling reading memories are of series like The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High.

In the highly gendered reading days of the 1980s, I knew those books were for girls, but I devoured them. My favourite book growing up Besides the girls of The…