Everything Is Tuberculosis

The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. 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 and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 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.

© John Green 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

John GreenJohn GreenEbury Digital

Contagious Diseases

History

History & Philosophy

Physical Illness & Disease

Science

Respiratory Disease

Heartfelt

Inspiring

Thought-Provoking

Contagious Diseases History History & Philosophy Physical Illness & Disease Science Respiratory Disease Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

Earnest and empathetic

Everything Is Tuberculosis doesn’t so much tell you the story of tuberculosis, as much as it gently holds your hand and parts the curtains into one of the darkest, most bizarre, and frustrating series of decisions in world history with the other... A quintessential John Green book: one that grapples with the issue of mortality and our conflicting desires to both help and hurt one another, all within the backdrop of the coming of age of a young man

Green uses the stories of real people to turn overwhelming problems into something personal and understandable.

This highly readable call to action could not be more timely

Henry’s story is hopeful and heartbreaking; readers will be rooting for him and his family the whole way through

Green writes expertly of the illness’s history, causes (malnutrition, poverty, bad sanitation, etc.), and cure… Insightful and extremely well and clearly written, Everything Is Tuberculosis makes what might be inaccessible accessible

In these challenging times, the global health community is fortunate to count on Green and his inspiring advocacy

A story of hope and tragedy that feels terribly relevant at a time when the global healthcare system is coming under attack.

An exceptional combination of memoir, medical history and cultural analysis…. Memorably probes the intersections of medicine and human emotion

Most relevant

I can’t begin to tell you how much this book needs to be read by the world. It is insightful, compelling, heartbreaking and thought provoking. I hope it will change the way the world views and treats tuberculosis.