The popularization of the television and the Internet have diverted people's attention away from books, and the publishing industry is said to be in the throes of a depression. But in recent months, books written for elderly readers have been racking up impressive sales, including some that have sold from several hundred thousand to over one million copies.

Hints on Living
In December 2001 a book titled Ikikata Jozu (Good at Living) by Shigeaki Hinohara was published. A renowned doctor, Hinohara is honorary president and chairman of the board of St. Luke's International Hospital (site is Japanese only) in Tokyo. Even at the age of 91 he is a very busy man, seeing patients every day and occasionally giving lectures. The Christian author writes about the importance of living positively in old age and shares his outlook on life and death. Ikikata Jozu is a book written by an elderly author to encourage elderly readers.

The initial print run of the book was 10,000 copies - a rather large number in the Japanese publishing industry. In Japan, where about 1.3 billion copies of 60,000 titles are published each year, the overwhelming majority of books are never reprinted. But sales of Ikikata Jozu began to pick up in the spring of 2002, and by mid-September the book had sold 1.2 million copies.

In July Hinohara published another book, Jinsei Hyakunen Watashi no Kufu (My Tricks for Living a Hundred Years). This book is also full of advice for seniors, such as: "Just walk when you're depressed," "Relieve the fatigue you've accumulated over the week during the same week," and "Find a role model who demonstrates what sort of person you'd like to be 20 years from now." In mid-September, two months since its publication, sales of the book surpassed 300,000 copies.

This success owes in part to the author's popularity on television among viewers of various age groups. Hinohara appears on numerous TV shows talking about health and child-rearing, and his integrity and a youthful appearance that belies his age have given viewers a favorable impression.

Powerful Messages
Other books on aging have become popular as well. One of them is Oite koso Jinsei (The Best of Life Is in Old Age), by author and Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara. Published in July 2002, the volume had sold 500,000 copies by the end of August.

Ishihara attracted a great deal of attention both in Japan and abroad for The Japan That Can Say No, the book he coauthored in 1989 with Sony Corp. cofounder Akio Morita. The bestseller argued that Japan should learn how to firmly say no to the United States, its "big brother," when necessary, but that it had not been very successful thus far. Ishihara has been in the limelight ever since his college days, when he published his first novel and won the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most famous literary award. He later became a member of the Diet and rose to the post of minister of transport. Since 1999, he has been governor of Tokyo.

Oite koso Jinsei is a book that the energetic Ishihara wrote in his seventieth year in a stage of ripeness that has enabled him to write, "The wholesome spirit that has been shaped by training physically through yachting, soccer, and other sports will protect the body as it gradually ages." In the book the author discusses his calm and determined attitude toward the "four sufferings" defined in Buddhism - birth, old age, sickness, and death - and the spirit with which one should face the onset of old age. His message that it is the final act of every drama that is the most substantial and moving appears to have aroused the sympathy of many people.

Living a Second Life
Societies around the world are rapidly graying, and Japan stands at the very forefront of this trend. According to preliminary figures that the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts, and Telecommunications released in September, 23.6 million citizens in Japan are aged 65 or over, accounting for 18.5% of the total population - the highest percentage among all the countries in the world. The percentage of senior citizens is expected to grow to 20% by 2006 and to 25% by 2014. As of 2001 the average life span of Japanese women was 84.9 years, the longest in the world, and 78.1 years for men, also among the longest.

In addition to elderly people, quite a few middle-aged people in their fifties have been reading books on aging. As a result of longer life spans, many middle-aged and elderly individuals are coming to perceive of the period after the prime of their lives as their "second lives" and are taking up new challenges. It is these challengers who have been fueling the current popularity of these books.