How Do You Live?

Genzaburo Yoshino

Oct 2021 · Sold by Algonquin Young Readers

About this ebook

As featured in the Oscar-nominated Hayao Miyazaki film The Boy and the Heron:  the coming-of-age novel How Do You Live? is a Japanese classic that become a New York Times bestseller, now with an introduction by Neil Gaiman. 

After the death of his father, fifteen-year-old Copper must confront inevitable and enormous change, including the aftermath of his own betrayal of his best friend. Between episodes of Copper’s emerging story, letters from his uncle share knowledge and offer advice on life’s big questions. Like his namesake Copernicus, Copper looks to the stars and uses his discoveries about the heavens, earth, and human nature to answer the question of how he will live.

First published in 1937 in Japan, Genzaburō Yoshino’s How Do You Live? has long been an important book for Academy Award-winning animator Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle). Perfect for readers of philosophical fiction like The Alchemist and The Little Prince, How Do You Live? serves as a thought-provoking guide for young readers as they grow up in a world both infinitely large and unimaginably small.

About the author

Genzaburō Yoshino (1899-1981) was a Japanese writer and publisher. In 1935, he became director of a collection of educational books for young people. When the acclaimed writer Yūzō Yamamoto was unable to complete a book on ethics as part of the series, Yoshino stepped in and wrote How Do You Live?. Since its debut as a novel and guide to philosophy for young people, How Do You Live? has sold more than two million copies, and been re-edited and republished more than eighty times to reflect the changing times and culture in Japan. 

Bruno Navasky is a teacher and writer, whose work as a translator and editor includes Festival in My Heart: Poems by Japanese Children and Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets, as well as translations published in The New York Times and The Paris Review. He was the founding editor of American Poet, the journal of the Academy of American Poets, where he now serves on the board of directors. He lives and works in New York City.

Neil Gaiman is the author of many bestsellers for readers of all ages, including Stardust, American Gods, Sandman, Anansi Boys, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), The Graveyard Book (winner of the Newbery Medal), and Coraline. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.