everything is tuberculosis

Recommended by E_C_B

in response to Gabriela Riccardi

What’s a book you’ve read that makes great dinner-party conversation? Hit me with the Dadaist art history that made you get into sculpture, the magpie biography whose eccentric subject runs laps around Edies Big and Little, the lightly Christian true-crime where the cult did THAT thing. Weird histories? Shocking industries? Nervy tell-alls with great guts and/or gossip? I want them all!

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I couldn’t stop talking about this book for weeks after I read it. There is so much cultural history tied to TB that I had no idea about (beauty, fashion, the feminine ideal, more!). I was astonished. And for as ubiquitous as TB is in literature, I realized while reading this book that I knew so little of TB’s origin as a disease, and how it still impacts the world today. Highly recommend.

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4 months ago

Comments

Gabriela Riccardi

@gabrielaMay 28, 2026

Ooh, this looks good. Disease as an impetus for how we get dressed...I'm in!

Brigid

@brigidMay 28, 2026

This one is somehow FUN. I loved it.

Amy

@whyhelloMay 29, 2026

Yes! This book was so well written - and fascinating! I bring it up at least once at every social event 🤪

Across Rec League

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Future of Our Deadliest Infection

Samin

“Who’d have thunk a book about tuberculosis could be so…gripping?”

151

Amy

“This book is so engrossing! You won’t want to put it down, and then will be talking about it for weeks.”

Daniel

“A bitter, bitter pill in a post-DOGE world, but an ultimately hopeful story about how just a little bit of money and attention could alter the course of the deadliest infectious disease on earth.”