40 Fun Facts About An Abundance of Katherines

The Wells family factory that employs Gutshot in An Abundance of Katherines makes which product?

Tampon strings are what the mill makes, which embarrasses Lindsey when Colin asks about it. Her great-grandfather founded the business, and the whole town relies on it.

Colin and Hassan pull off the highway at Gutshot to see the supposed tomb of which historical figure?

Franz Ferdinand, the archduke whose 1914 assassination set off World War I, died in Sarajevo, so Colin doubts the roadside sign at once. Lindsey Lee Wells turns out to be the guide.

Which courtroom TV show has Hassan Harbish spent his year after high school watching instead of studying?

Judge Judy is the show Hassan calls the love of his life, and his parents fear he is wasting his days on it. Colin wins the Harbishes over by promising to help Hassan find a job.

Where is the secret hideout that Lindsey Lee Wells shows only to Colin in An Abundance of Katherines?

A cave in the woods is Lindsey's refuge, found on a hike when she was in eighth grade. Inside it is too dark to see, and that is where she and Colin finally talk honestly.

Colin Singleton believes everyone in a romance falls into one of which two categories?

Dumpers and Dumpees are Colin's two types, and he counts himself firmly among the second. The split becomes the first variable in his relationship Theorem.

Colin Singleton pays for the road trip in An Abundance of Katherines with $10,000 he won how?

A TV game show called KranialKidz paid Colin the prize a year before the trip. Hollis Wells recognizes him from it, which is how he and Hassan get invited to dinner.

Which wild animals do Colin and Hassan join the Gutshot locals to hunt in An Abundance of Katherines?

Feral hogs are the quarry, and Colin prepares by reading up on them rather than practicing outdoors. Nobody in the party bags one: the day's only kill is a squirrel.

Colin Singleton longs for a 'Eureka' moment like the one credited to which ancient Greek thinker?

Archimedes fascinated Colin from the age of four, when he read about the discovery of water displacement. His mother promised him he would have such a moment too.

How many girls named Katherine has Colin Singleton dated by the start of An Abundance of Katherines?

Nineteen Katherines, each spelled exactly that way, have gone out with Colin. The first and the last turn out to be the same girl, Katherine Carter.

What summer job does Hollis Wells pay Colin and Hassan $500 a week to do in Gutshot?

Interviewing residents for an oral history of the town is the job, with room and board thrown in. Hollis wants a record of the mill and its people before both are gone.

In which US state do Colin and Hassan find the small town of Gutshot on their road trip?

Tennessee is where the pair stop after crossing Kentucky without liking it much. A woman who gives them directions warns that Gutshot is out in the sticks.

Colin Singleton and Hassan Harbish set off on their road trip from which home city?

Chicago is home, so the roosters that wake Colin in the countryside are a sound he has never heard before. His first rural morning starts at 5 a.m.

Colin Singleton's latest Katherine ends their relationship on the night of which milestone?

High school graduation was that day, and the couple had gone out for sushi to celebrate. They had been together for almost a year.

What nickname do Colin Singleton and Hassan Harbish give the Oldsmobile they take on the road trip?

Satan's Hearse is the pair's name for Colin's Oldsmobile. They set off in it with no destination in mind, once both sets of parents have reluctantly agreed.

Which nickname do Colin and Hassan give Lindsey Lee Wells's boyfriend, who is also called Colin?

TOC stands for The Other Colin, a label Hassan insists on so nobody confuses the two. Lindsey has never dated anyone else, a mirror of Colin's run of Katherines.

Lindsey Lee Wells treats the head wound Colin gets on her Gutshot tour because she is training as what?

A paramedic in training, Lindsey takes off her own shirt to stop the bleeding after Colin trips on a molehill and hits a rock. Hassan had refused to give up his.

What color is the mansion where Hollis Wells puts up Colin and Hassan during their stay in Gutshot?

Pink is Hollis's signature: the house is the shade of Pepto-Bismol and she has a pickup truck to match. Colin says it is the biggest home he has ever seen.

Colin Singleton first stunned his parents as a two-year-old by reading aloud from what?

A newspaper his father was reading did it: Colin read aloud from the back of it, to his parents' shock. They took him to a psychologist, who tested him and called him a prodigy.

Hassan Harbish, whose morning prayers wake Colin Singleton in Gutshot, follows which religion?

Islam shapes Hassan's running commentary on what is and is not permitted, though he bends the rules that summer. His kiss with Katrina starts a real row with Colin.

How does An Abundance of Katherines end for Colin, Hassan and Lindsey on the way to get burgers?

They keep driving past the restaurant, realizing nothing obliges them to stop. Colin has just accepted that the future cannot be worked out in advance.

Which silly word do Colin Singleton and Hassan Harbish agree to say when their teasing goes too far?

Dingleberries is the truce word, agreed after Hassan snaps at one jibe too many about his future. From then on either friend can call it to end an argument.

Colin and Hassan say 'fug' in tribute to which novelist, whose publisher made him tone down a war book?

Norman Mailer swapped the word into The Naked and the Dead when his publishers barred the real obscenity. Lindsey praises Colin for finally telling a story well when he explains it.

On the Gutshot hunt, Colin Singleton fires his gun at a brown-gray shape that turns out to be what?

A hornets' nest takes the shot, and the swarm chases Colin and Hassan downhill to the cemetery. Hassan keeps calling the insects bees.

Colin Singleton's first Katherine, who asked him out in third grade, was the daughter of which adult?

His tutor, a psychology professor Colin called Krazy Keith, taught him for part of every school day. That first romance lasted only a couple of minutes.

Colin Singleton phones his third Katherine from the Gutshot woods and learns which surprising fact?

He had ended things with her himself, which wrecks his belief that every Katherine left him. The correction is what finally makes his Theorem work.

How does Lindsey Lee Wells deliver her joke breakup on the day Colin's Theorem says they will split?

A note says she has fallen for Hassan, then a postscript admits she is only joking. It shows Colin that his formula can explain the past but cannot predict what comes next.

Hollis Wells hides her factory's falling sales from Gutshot's workers by doing what with unsold stock?

Burying it at a distant warehouse keeps the production line running and everyone employed. Lindsey, Colin and Hassan catch a worker with a bulldozer in the act.

Which step does Hassan Harbish finally take in An Abundance of Katherines after Colin's constant nagging?

Hassan signs up for college at last, registering online for two classes. After watching Hollis fight to keep her workers in jobs, he wonders about adding a third.

When Lindsey's friends interrupt the tomb visit in Gutshot, who do Colin and Hassan pretend to be?

French tourists is the act, with Colin posing as a visitor who speaks little English. Lindsey's laughter gives the game away, and the newcomers all get nicknames.

Which board game does Colin Singleton play for the first time at the Wells house and still dominate?

Scrabble is new to Colin, yet he plays it brilliantly. The game follows the dinner where Hollis offers him and Hassan work.

Which kind of wordplay does Colin Singleton use to dull pain and pass time in An Abundance of Katherines?

Anagrams have been Colin's habit since a childhood visit to a psychologist, when he rearranged a word on toy blocks. One later solves the riddle of the Gutshot tomb.

An Abundance of Katherines was John Green's second novel; which boarding-school story was his debut?

Looking for Alaska came out in 2005, a year before Colin's story, and drew on Green's own time at a school in Alabama. Its bleak turn is something the follow-up leaves out.

Which prize for young adult literature named An Abundance of Katherines an Honor Book?

Printz Award judges put it among the 2007 honor titles, and it was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Green's debut had won the same award outright a year earlier.

Which mathematician friend of John Green wrote the appendix to An Abundance of Katherines?

Daniel Biss explains the real equations behind Colin's Theorem in the closing pages. He later swapped math for politics, becoming a state senator and then a city mayor.

Which ancient language had Colin Singleton planned to study over the summer before the road trip came up?

Sanskrit was the plan, and Colin's father raises it as a reason not to leave. Colin answers that for once he wants to go out and do something.

Starnes, the Gutshot factory's longest-serving worker, once spent two nights in jail for shooting what?

A pet snake belonging to his neighbor was the victim: Starnes found it in her house and had no idea it was tame. He put in sixty years at the mill, where the break room bears his name.

Lindsey Lee Wells tells Colin that a boy once handed her which cruel Valentine's Day gift in third grade?

A can of dog food was the gift, a jibe at her looks from the boy who later became her boyfriend. She had been thrilled that someone was finally being kind to her.

Which emergency does Hassan Harbish fake so he and Colin can return to the air-conditioned Wells house?

An asthma attack, complete with wheezing, is the ruse. Hollis is annoyed at being disturbed during her workday until she sees the state Hassan seems to be in.

Which Shel Silverstein picture book does Colin Singleton's father bring home after his son's IQ test?

The Missing Piece follows a circle hunting for its lost wedge. When his father asked whether he was missing a piece too, young Colin thought the question silly.

Which private habit does Lindsey Lee Wells let Colin Singleton see but hide from everyone else?

Biting her thumb is something Lindsey does only when alone, so doing it beside Colin is a sign of trust. She shows him her secret hideout for the same reason.