Ikigai

Psychology

Print length: 194 pagesPenguin Life, 2017

Description

Ikigai introduces the Japanese idea of finding meaning and happiness through purposeful activity. Rather than presenting purpose solely as a grand ambition or fixed career, the guide considers how it can emerge from daily routines, social connection, continued curiosity, modest movement, and work that absorbs attention. Its discussion draws on the practices of people known for exceptional longevity, using their habits to explore the relationship between having a reason to act and sustaining engagement with life. The book combines cultural explanation with practical reflection, encouraging readers to notice where their abilities, interests, and everyday commitments meet. Its central concern is not simply living longer, but building a life whose ordinary activities provide direction, participation, and satisfaction.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Descriptive · Direct

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Hopeful · Reflective · Uplifting · Warm

Structure

Argumentative

Focus

Ideas · Information

Emotional intensity

2 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

AgingCommunityTransformationWork

About Héctor García

Héctor García is a Spanish engineer who writes about purpose as a practice rooted in ordinary life rather than a single ambition or career choice. Drawing on Japanese ideas, he combines cultural explanation with reflection and practical exercises, asking readers to consider how interests, abilities, relationships, contribution, and daily habits can give life direction. Ikigai develops this perspective through routines, social connection, curiosity, movement, absorbing work, and the habits of people known for longevity. In writing for teenagers, García retains this flexible view of purpose, encouraging experimentation and treating ambitions as open to change.

About Francesc Miralles

Francesc Miralles is a Catalan writer, essayist, translator, journalist, and musician whose career spans adult and young-adult fiction as well as practical nonfiction. His fiction ranges from the melancholic love and mystery of Wish You Were Here to the Gothic-inspired urban world of Retrum, which connects with the later Øbliviøn trilogy. Beyond his books, he has worked as a literary consultant, contributed to newspapers and magazines, translated young-adult fiction by Henning Mankell into Catalan, and released four albums with his band Nikosia. In Ikigai, co-written with Héctor García and translated into 70 languages, Miralles turns the Japanese concept of a reason for living into a discussion of daily routines, social connection, curiosity, movement, and absorbing work. Across these forms, his work joins storytelling with cultural mediation and practical explanation.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Penguin Life
Language: English
ISBN: 9780143130727

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