Everything Is Tuberculosis

The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

No cover

John Green: Everything Is Tuberculosis (2025, Penguin Young Readers Group)

208 pages

English language

Published 2025 by Penguin Young Readers Group.

ISBN:
978-0-525-55657-2
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

5 stars (1 review)

5 editions

A man obsessed with TB makes a case for how we should change how we think of it

5 stars

This non-fiction book is by an author known better for his fiction and social media presence. He grew fascinated by the biggest killer disease around the world and researched how something so deadly today could have a treatment that is able to treat it successfully for the last half century. The book began when he met a young tuberculosis patient in Sierra Leone with a magnetic personality who suffered a series of challenges in his illness that each threatened to cost him his life. Along the way, the book delves into the history of researchers who worked on a cure including the big pharmaceutical firms which control the production and distribution of the drugs in the treatment. It explains the biology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in simple terms for non-experts.

I listened to this as an audiobook, read by the author. He has a talent for making a subject you had …