... 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.

... the popular version of the movement soon drops out of the book. The following chapters, often broken into fragments, ruminate on the most culturally exalted manifestations of minimalism: fine artists like Donald Judd, avant-garde composers like John Cage, and Japanese writers and philosophers who elucidated the Zen-influenced aesthetics of their own culture...This is disappointing, and at times intellectually muddled. What begins, promisingly, as wide-ranging synthesis of a fascinating and perplexing impulse becomes an exercise in taste, a guide to distinguishing between 'good' and 'bad' minimalism.

Alluringly titled, Chayka’s insightful book connects a wide array of thought-provoking approaches to the concept of less is more..

... an intriguing deep dive into the many manifestations of minimalism.