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Maybe someday
36
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
5/100Critics
16/100Scholars
89/100Author:
Kyle Chayka
Publisher:
Bloomsbury Publishing
Date:
January 21, 2020
Marie Kondo and other decluttering gurus promise that shedding our stuff will solve our problems. We commit to cleanse diets and strive for inbox zero. But minimalism has richer, deeper, and altogether more valuable gifts to offer.
What The Reviewers Say
... those two kinds of minimalism — sleek lifestyle branding and enforced austerity — don’t quite convey the enormousness of the subject Chayka explores in this slender book.
...a new book by the journalist and critic Kyle Chayka, arrives not as an addition to the minimalist canon but as a corrective to it.
Chayka suspects, astutely, that minimalism can be used not just to make complex experiences simpler, but the other way around.
It’s unclear whether the Kondo-style approach to home organization has anything to do with seismic shifts in art and architecture—and that’s the fundamental flaw of Mr. Chayka’s book. Because of this disconnect, The Longing for Less leaves you wanting more: either a deep explanation of the cultural factors contributing to the rise of minimalist aesthetics today, or an incisive piece of art criticism that casts new light on the Minimalist art movement. You get neither.
