I'm not usually a non-fiction reader beyond the occasional memoir, but when I saw that John Green's latest book is about tuberculosis, it called out to me. My college sweetheart, a kind, smart, lovely guy, died of drug-resistant TB 12 years ago. He had been living in Thailand for years and he died there. This book helped me understand how an educated, well-off and well-meaning person can die in a poor country. Would the outcome had been the same in the US, who knows? But, as Green so clearly states, poverty, greed by drug companies, and the state of our health care systems throughout the world are now the primary causes of death by TB, not an inability to recognize and cure the disease. Green is a wonderful writer and his book is full of individual stories as well as facts. It is an upsetting read, but I think an important one. We are far from a world where health care is available to all.
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