Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

By John Green

#1 New York Times bestseller • #1 Washington Post bestseller • #1 Indie Bestseller • USA Today Bestseller John Green, award-winning author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease. AN ACCLAIMED BEST BOOK OF 2025: NPR, Scientific American, Science News, Booklist, BookPage, Chicago Sun-Times. Goodreads Readers’ Choice Nonfiction Winner. Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year. In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.

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Published Mar 18, 2025

Average rating: 8.08

717 RATINGS

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Readers say *Everything Is Tuberculosis* is a well-written, compassionate exploration of tuberculosis’s history, science, and social impact. Reviewers...

Sue Dix
10/10 stars
This book is an astounding eye opener. The world is deliberately ignorant of the facts surrounding this deadly disease. I should say, the “rich” world. The solutions put forth by the author are sensible, doable, but as with must inequality, they have little to do with the medical cause of the infection, and more to do with the injustice surrounding accessibility to the cure. We need virtuous cycles, not vicious cycles. This book is a must read.
KatQuick
10/10 stars
Unexpectedly fascinating! Couldn't stop talking about it to anyone that would listen.
Suecutlerart
Truly captivating description of the problem that the disease of tuberculosis creates for humanity—a humanity that struggles to work collaboratively on anything. It is a great nonfiction book!
rubyjames
8/10 stars
Deliciously good
gracegury06
7/10 stars
bookmarked some really interesting stuff here. i wanna know what green thinks about how current admin has cut USAID and the issues at hhs

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