This morning, Libro.fm — an audiobook platform that supports independent bookstores chosen by its listeners — announced its second-ever Bookseller Choice Awards.
These awards highlight the best audiobooks of the year and are selected by booksellers at over 4,000 independent bookstores from around the globe.
This year, their feedback culminated in high praise for John Green and his 2025 nonfiction book, “Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection.”
The booksellers named it Libro.fm’s Audiobook of the Year.
While these awards come directly from booksellers and aren’t necessarily indicative of sales, “Everything Is Tuberculosis” was also the No. 1 best-selling audiobook on Libro.fm in 2025, topping a list of 10 titles announced last month.
“Libro.fm shares profits with independent bookshops, and booksellers play an integral role in our curation,” a statement from the company said. “Instead of being algorithm driven, the recommendations across the website and app come from them.”
In fact, accompanying Green’s work on the Libro.fm website are direct quotes from booksellers.
“John Green writes a deeply touching set of narratives that blend personal stories with insightful critiques of a disease that continues to thrive off of poverty and injustice,” Kerry of Black Rock Books shared.
“This book does a beautiful job of showing how the world’s most infectious disease not only has shaped our history but how our current choices continue to shape the future of tuberculosis. A quick, yet deeply moving read.”
Indeed, Green’s audiobook — narrated by the author and clocking in at just over five and a half hours — weaves narratives through various eras in history, up to our present day.
As a whole, it aims to be a resource that “humanizes and gives hope” to the “ongoing struggle” to address tuberculosis, as a description of the book reads.
This struggle is one Green knows increasingly well, having worked alongside TB advocates and experts from Doctors Without Borders and Stop TB Partnership, and even speaking before the United Nations on the subject.
He has also personally donated over $1 million to the cause, all while consistently raising awareness about the prevalence of TB internationally.
That passion for global health is on display in the book, and while Green already has a large and engaged audience following years of successful fiction-writing and entrepreneurship, the timing of his latest nonfiction release also contextualizes its success.
Cuts to USAID and The Global Fund under the Trump administration earlier this year threaten essential TB prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services in countries especially affected by the disease.
During the press tour for “Everything Is Tuberculosis” in March of this year, Green argued that cuts to foreign aid “are making global health outcomes worse.”
“The United States has long been the most generous supporter of the fight against tuberculosis and a key ally in every country that's fighting the disease … without USAID money, thousands of people are losing access to their treatment,” Green said in an interview on “Amanpour and Company” earlier this year.
He added that treatment interruptions lead to more drug-resistant tuberculosis, which is “bad news” for individuals, as well as “social orders,” since drug resistance could eventually lead to a form of TB that no longer responds to the existing tools developed to fight the disease.
“It is devastating to watch this unfold,” Green added. “I never imagined I would be publishing this book in a time where it's so timely.”
This timeliness, other booksellers shared, is part of why they recommend it as a title.
“John Green’s ability to pack hundreds of years of history into roughly five and a half hours is a masterclass in research and writing. His signature style and voice shine through while telling stories of real people, past and present, suffering from the disease,” Brigid of Friendly Alien Books said.
“It’s like listening to your favorite YouTuber’s new podcast on an extremely timely and timeless topic.”
Other audiobooks from the 2025 Libro.fm Bookseller Choice Awards include:
- Audiobook of the Year Runner-Up: “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” by Omar El Akkad
- Best Under-the-Radar Audiobook: “The Lilac People” by Milo Todd
- Best Under-the-Radar Audiobook Runner-Up: “Eat the Ones You Love” by Sarah Marie Griffin
- Better on Audio: “The River Has Roots” by Amal El-Mohtar
- Better on Audio Runner-Up: “The Favorites” by Layne Fargo
- Young Readers: “They Bloom at Night” by Trang Thanh Tran
- Young Readers Runner-Up: “The Library of Unruly Treasures” by Jeanne Birdsall
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Header images courtesy of John Green/Crash Course Books
