Everything Is Tuberculosis

Felt like sinking into a long conversation with an old friend. John's voice (both authorial and aural) is consistently approachable and filled with pathos. He breaks down the multifaceted hurdles of addressing tuberculosis in a way that's easy to digest while never allowing the reader to forget, at all times, that these challenges are not just survivable but a crime they've been allowed to go on for so long. The anecdotes he shares are harrowing; at multiple points I had to stop and take a break because I was tearing up, but he manages to weave in enough hope that it doesn't become overwhelming.

The work left to be done feels endless, but it will have an end. It's work worth doing.

An engaging account of the history, epidemiology, and difficulties around the fight to cure TB patients and eradicate the disease. John Green introduces us to a young TB patient in a woefully underfunded West African hospital with the local reputation of being where people go to die. This patient serves as a touchstone that the author repeatedly returns to, to put a name and a “face” to the fight to cure TB patients in poor countries, while educating us on the history, biology, and treatment (or non-treatment) of the disease. Mr. Green leaves the reader with hope in the fight, and with a cautionary warning about what the pursuit of ungodly profit over making eradication a goal may mean to the world as a whole. Mr. Green makes this account personal, but whether it resolves in a happy or sad way is up to you to discover by reading the book; there will be no spoilers here.

John Green is an exceptional writer. It's obvious when you read one of his books, or follow any of his online activities. There's a quality about him that I don't think a lot of people share in quite the same way, let alone express it in such a beautiful way: His love for humanity.

I don't mean that in a prosaic, roundabout way. No, John Green loves not just people, but truly humanity itself. The things that make us human, the imperfections, the capabilities and everything in between.

Everything he writes is seemingly guided by this fondness. Unsurprisingly it isn't any different with this book either.

On the surface this book tells the story about tuberculosis, the worlds deadliest infectious disease and how it has affected humans throughout history and, surprisingly, the current day. But in reality, it tells a story about humanity.

It does so by picking out a variety of people who at one point in time were diagnosed with TB, some of whom John has a personal connection to, some of whom are historical figures, and telling their story. Presenting how it was and how it still is to get diagnosed with, battle and eventually succumb to TB, a fate that over a million people still share every year.

In a surprise to absolutely no-one, the answer as to why so many people are still dying every year of a disease that's curable is corporate greed and racism.

But I'm not the right person to tell you all about that, John Green is.

So go and read his book. It's well worth your time.