How Do You Live?

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 became a New York Times bestseller. 

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.