The best-seller list currently features three volumes on living and aging well: "Oite Koso Jinsei" (Nothing Is More Human Than Aging), by novelist/politician Shintaro Ishihara; "Unmei no Ashioto" (The Footsteps of Approaching Fate), by novelist Hiroyuki Itsuki; and "Ikikata Jozu" (How to Live Well), by Shigeaki Hinohara. The last has been particularly successful, selling 1.2 million copies since its publication last December and bringing many other titles by Hinohara to bookstores.
The advice of Hinohara, a 90-year-old doctor at St. Luke's Hospital in Tokyo, is unexceptional: Have a positive attitude, form healthy habits, don't be afraid of new challenges, look for a model for how you want to be in 10 or 20 years, and take responsibility for your own life. However, the prose style is very accessible, like a personal talk from the wise old family doctor everyone wishes they had, and Hinohara's obvious sincerity shines through in a refreshing change from the commercially calculated titles that increasingly fill the best-seller list.
And judging from the letters quoted in a new volume, "Ikikata Jozu Taiwahen" (Dialogue Edition of How to Live Well), Hinohara's message has helped many, many readers. No longer able to respond personally to the letters and prepaid reader cards coming in at the rate of 100-200 a day -- 14,000 so far -- he decided to publish this book to let readers know that they weren't alone in the problems they faced or the feelings they had.