quick take | Bookshelf Fantasies

My two most recent audiobooks were both non-fiction — very unusual for me! — and both were terrific. (I should note that in terms of subject matter, tone, and genre, these books are nothing alike… but they happen to be the two short audiobooks I listened to most recently, so why not combine them into one two-fer review post?)

Here are my quick thoughts on each:

Title: Everything Is Tuberculosis
Author: John Green
Narrator: John Green
Publisher: Crash Course Books
Publication date: March 18, 2025
Print length: 208 pages
Audio length: 5 hours 35 minutes
Genre: Non-fiction / science
Source: Library
Rating:

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

In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. 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 advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a 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.

Everything Is Tuberculosis is an informative, eye-opening look at tuberculosis, with a narrative style that’s personal, accessible, and highly engaging.

John Green is both the author and narrator, and his sense of urgency and deep personal commitment are evident throughout the listening experience. The author initially become drawn to the topic of tuberculosis while visiting a hospital in Sierra Leone and meeting a young patient there. As he describes it, he quickly became obsessed with learning more about the disease, to the point that for him, as his wife puts it, “everything is tuberculosis”.

The facts and figures are startling. I had no idea that tuberculosis is still the #1 killer amongst diseases in this day and age, with over one million people continuing to die from tuberculosis each year. This is especially heartbreaking in light of the fact that tuberculosis is curable — but as the author repeats throughout the book:

… the cure is where the disease is not, and the disease is where the cure is not.

Everything Is Tuberculosis focuses on the public health issues surrounding tuberculosis, especially the systems of scarcity, drug availability, stigmatization, and social constructs that that prevent people most in need from accessing life-saving medicines that can absolutely cure their illnesses, if only they could get them.

This is an important book, easy to digest yet providing endless food for thought.

A reading note: I do wish I’d had access to a print or e-book version as well (both of which have huge wait lists at the library). I’d like to be able to go back and revisit certain facts, incidents, and pieces of the history. My recommendation for fullest audio appreciation would be to pair listening with a print edition.

Title: Things My Son Needs to Know about the World
Author: Fredrik Backman
Narrator: Santino Fontana
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: May 7, 2019
Print length: 208 pages
Audio length: 3 hours 10 minutes
Genre: Non-fiction / humor
Source: Library
Rating:

Things My Son Needs to Know About the World collects the personal dispatches from the front lines of one of the most daunting experiences any man can experience: fatherhood.

As he conveys his profound awe at experiencing all the “firsts” that fill him with wonder and catch him completely unprepared, Fredrik Backman doesn’t shy away from revealing his own false steps and fatherly flaws, tackling issues both great and small, from masculinity and mid-life crises to practical jokes and poop.

In between the sleep-deprived lows and wonderful highs, Backman takes a step back to share the true story of falling in love with a woman who is his complete opposite, and learning to live a life that revolves around the people you care about unconditionally. Alternating between humorous side notes and longer essays offering his son advice as he grows up and ventures out into the world, Backman relays the big and small lessons in life, including:

-How to find the team you belong to
-Why airports explain everything about religion and war
-The reason starting a band is crucial to cultivating and keeping friendships
-How to beat Monkey Island 3
-Why, sometimes, a dad might hold onto his son’s hand just a little too tight.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove shares an irresistible and moving collection of heartfelt, fictional, humorous essays about fatherhood, providing his newborn son with the perspective and tools he’ll need to make his way in the world.

I’ve read many of Fredrik Backman’s novels, so I already know that I enjoy his humor, his wordplay, and his quirkiness. Naturally, once I heard about Things My Son Needs to Know about the World, I simply had to give it a try. The short version of my review? This book is a delight.

Short, sweet, and filled with love, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World contains a father’s words of wisdom — about everything from video games to Ikea to the depths of love for a spouse and a child — written by the author with his toddler son as the intended future audience. So yes, he talks quite a lot about diapers and lack of sleep and how the preschool teachers don’t always appreciate his sense of humor… but through all the funny bits (and there are plenty), there’s also true emotion and powerful doses of reality and perspective.

But, mainly, oodles of fun. Parts of this book are quite moving, and nearly all of it is laugh-out-loud funny. I think parents of any age children would find something to connect with here.

The audiobook version, narrated by Santino Fontana, is a treat to listen to, and goes by very quickly.

If you need a break from stressful days and want to laugh (and maybe even cry) a little (or a lot), definitely check out Things My Son Needs to Know about the World!

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Two very different reading/listening experiences… both highly recommended!Save

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We all have those books — books on our shelves, that we know we should read, that we absolutely WANT to read… and yet, somehow, we just never seem to pick them up and actually, you know, read them.

Well, score one for me! I’ve had 84, Charing Cross Road sitting on my shelf for at least ten years now, and this week, the time finally arrived, and I read it all in one sitting!

“84, Charing Cross Road” is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural differences, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, “The phrase ‘antiquarian booksellers’ scares me somewhat, as I equate ‘antique’ with expensive.” Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic – but unsure she’ll ever conquer “bilingual arithmetic.” By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she’s sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.

Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. “I enclose two limp singles, I will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN I will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT.” Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they’re sharing news of Frank’s family and Hanff’s career.

84, Charing Cross Road is just as wonderful as everyone promised! First off, as soon as I opened the book, I realized that I’d misunderstood what it was about all this time. I thought this book was fiction. It’s not. It’s a selection of the letters sent between the author, a New York freelance writer, and members of the staff of Marks & Co. Booksellers, located in London, spanning the course of over 20 years.

The correspondence starts with a request for certain books, but builds from there to establish a more personal connection between the author and her main correspondent, Frank Doel, as well as Frank’s wife, their neighbor, and other members of the bookstore staff.

The letters begin in 1949, as England is still suffering under post-war shortages; Helene Hanff’s Christmas gifts of meat and eggs do wonders for the bookstore staff’s morale, and their grateful notes back to her are heartwarming and endearing.

84, Charing Cross Road is a lovely, simple book about finding friendship through a love of books. It’s sweet without being cloying, often very funny, and touching as well.

To all those who’ve encouraged me to read this book, now I know why! I loved it. What a treasure.

Published: 1970
Length: 97 pages
Rating:

It’s fun to see how many covers and versions there are of this book! Sadly, it does not appear that an e-book version is available in the US. Still, the book covers are quite fun to compare and enjoy: