Best-selling superstar John Green’s latest book, Everything is Tuberculosis, is his first full-length non-fiction work. Green isn’t interested in following trends. In retrospect, his blockbuster young adult romance, The Fault in our Stars, triggered a wave of contemporary romances that grew into the tsunami of titles currently swallowing the industry. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Green isn’t satisfied with remaining in the genre or recycling old intellectual property.
The author has taken a surprising turn in science writing. His 2021 book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, was a collection of essays spanning diverse topics.
As for his latest… a few years ago, Green visited Sierra Leone with his wife. And in the opening pages of this book, Green describes the visit as something close to divine intervention. Since that trip, Green has become obsessed with tuberculosis, thinking about it daily. The title comes from Green’s wife, who gently teased him and said that he managed to steer every conversation back to the subject.
In the opening chapters, Green makes a compelling argument that tuberculosis is everything. As he explains it, the disease is partly responsible for the state of New Mexico, shorter skirts in women’s fashion, the invention of the cowboy hat and the beginning of World War I. The book’s first half is dedicated to charting the disease’s cultural and scientific history.
The second part is wholly obsessed with tuberculosis’ poor treatment protocols in vulnerable countries. Apart from climate change, it is undoubtedly humanity’s most significant moral failing. Green doesn’t flinch from unmasking the complexity of the problem – examining colonialism, racism, poverty and the sterile coldness of modern science. He never presents excuses. On every page, it is clear Green is outraged and wants the reader to share his pain. In 2023, 1.25 million people died from tuberculosis: a wholly treatable and preventable illness.
Green covers a lot of ground in a relatively short volume. It’s a wonder the work never feels superficial. Instead it is forensic, told with Green’s signature wit and compassion. The only flaw is a matter of structure. Green’s book has almost no signposting for the reader, and so they are thrust from page to page with breathless intensity. It dampens the full strength of his argument a little, which could do with an occasional pause and summary before plunging ever onward.
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An urgent call to arms and a necessary popular education in one of humanity’s most profound illnesses, Everything is Tuberculosis will stand out as one of the best non-fiction reads for 2025, suitable for almost any reader.
Everything is Tuberculosis, John Green
Publisher: Ebury Press (Penguin Random House)
ISBN: 9781529961430
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208pp
Publication date: 25 March 2025
RRP: $36.99
