Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Looking for Alaska is very loosely based on real life. That is, John Green went to a boarding school, a classmate of his died, and the death devastated the school. (Source)
There really was a prank at John Green's boarding school that involved a stripper and Speaker Day. (Though if you watch the video, John Green admits he's not a very reliable storyteller.) (Source)
John Green rewrote the funeral scene between fifteen and twenty times, and his editor kept sending it back. (Source)
The numbers by the telephone included John Green's phone number until 2007. (Source)
One of the working titles for Looking for Alaska was White Flowers and Warm Malt Liquor. Thank goodness Green went with something a little more mysterious. (Source)