HOW TO LIVE

An inventive celebration of a visionary, globally revered artist that both places him in context and assesses his work through an emotional and existential lens, in the process making us fall in love with the movies all over again.

Using a thematic structure that is anchored by the individual films and the question each asks, Jakub makes a compelling argument that Miyazaki is a filmmaker whose main preoccupation is nothing short of understanding how humans live and make meaning, and that his films--his research into human life--ultimately help us to reconnect to ourselves and our base intuition (which exists strongest in children) in a modern age beset by conflict and distraction and strife.
The book will explain why people love Miyazaki, how his films work, and, hopefully, gently us how to live better, more connected lives by trusting our intuition and re-engaging with childlike wonder.

Lucy Jakub writes essays, criticism, and reportage, often at the intersection of art, science, and history. She studied creative nonfiction at Columbia University, has a graduate degree in science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was previously an editor at The New York Review of Books. She divides her time between Brooklyn and Down East Maine.