You may know author John Green from popular YA books like Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, and Turtles All the Way Down, or his more recent adult nonfiction book The Anthropocene Reviewed. Now, in his 2025 release Everything is Tuberculosis, John Green writes about an infectious disease–a disease that is curable, yet continues to kill more than one million people each year.
Green offers readers a glimpse into the social and biomedical histories of tuberculosis, while also exploring how, although treatments exist (often for those in higher income countries), present day health injustice and inequity contribute to continued deaths of tuberculosis globally. Throughout, Green also shares the story of Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient he met while visiting Sierra Leone.
At just under 200 pages, I think this is a perfect entry point for anyone wanting to learn more about tuberculosis. Green’s conversational, storytelling skills help make this information widely accessible, especially if you know little about tuberculosis prior to reading this book.
This was one of my most anticipated book releases of the year, and it was an excellent read–in fact, it has encouraged me to learn more about the topic! If you feel the same after reading the book, he provides a long list of other resources to check out, including one that I’ve linked below.
