How We Live Now

Winner of the New York City Book Award

From the beloved author of Insomniac City, a poignant and profound tribute in stories and images to a city amidst a pandemic.

A bookstore where readers shout their orders from the street. A neighbourhood restaurant turned to-go place where one has a shared drink—on either end of a bar—with the owner. These scenes, among many others, became the new normal as soon as the world began to face the COVID-19 pandemic.

In How We Live Now, author and photographer Bill Hayes offers an ode to our shared humanity—capturing in real time this strange new world we’re now in (for who knows how long?) with his signature insight and grace. As he wanders the increasingly empty streets of Manhattan, Hayes meets fellow New Yorkers and discovers stories to tell, but he also shares the unexpected moments of gratitude he finds from within his apartment, where he lives alone and—like everyone else—is staying home, trying to keep busy and not bored as he adjusts to enforced solitude with reading, cooking, reconnecting with loved ones, reflecting on the past—and writing.

Featuring Hayes’s inimitable street photographs, How We Live Now chronicles an unimaginable moment in time, offering a long-lasting reminder that what will get us through this unprecedented, deadly crisis is each other.