How Do You Live? is a novel translated from Japanese author Genzaburo Yoshino. The book was published in 1937, and it’s called 君たちはどう生きるか (Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka) in Japanese . It follows a young 15-year old boy called Junichi Honda, whose nickname is Copper, and his uncle as the boy encounters life about poverty, spirit growth and finding the meaning of being a good human. I picked out one of my favorite quotes from the book:
“You take many things from this world, but I wonder what you will give back in return?”
I love this quote because it talks about how we randomly take things from this world, but we won’t give anything back in return. By using this quote, I think that Genzaburo wants us to appreciate our world more, and never needlessly take things from it. I really enjoyed this book because it’s not like those normal types of coming-of-age books. It paints every single detail in your mind extremely clearly. I can image Uragawa’s fried tofu shop, the Taiyaki bean cake, and even the cold ice packs in the little tin bucket. I can tell that much care was put into writing this book, and I think that everyone should read it.