Archive

The Longing for Less Excerpts

• Harper’s, Dec 2019 issue, “Being in Nothingness”: an excerpt from the book’s fourth chapter, Shadow.

• The Guardian, Jan 3 2020 paper, “The empty promises of Marie Kondo and the craze for minimalism”: an excerpt from the book’s first chapter, Reduction.

• Artnet.com, Jan 8 2020, “How Marfa Went From Donald Judd’s Anti-Commercial Escape to a Mecca of Luxury Minimalism”: an excerpt from the book’s second chapter, Emptiness.

• Essays also appeared in Paris Review and New York Times Opinion.

Notices

• "More than just a story of an abiding cultural preoccupation, The Longing For Less peels back the commodified husk of minimalism to reveal something surprising and thoroughly alive." — Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing

• “In its lightly worn learning and serious grace, The Longing for Less functions both as a corrective to our shallow form of minimalism and as a guide to a deeper form that still has a great deal to teach us.” — Brian Phillips, author of Impossible Owls

• “I'm no minimalist, but I am not immune to Kyle Chayka's searching, subtle, and finally quite moving exploration of the beauty of less.” — Lucy Sante, author of Low Life

• “Kyle Chayka gently urges us to reconsider our inheritance of the minimalist legacy while offering nuanced, profound, and then outright dazzling angles on a subject as loved as it is overexposed.” — Paola Antonelli, curator of design at the Museum of Modern Art

• “What if the whole voguish notion of minimalism is a capitalist ruse?” — Wall Street Journal Magazine

• “…explores not only how one might live in a minimalist fashion, but in fact where the idea comes from and how it's changed and adapted over the ages.” — Town & Country

Reviews

• “The minimalism that Chayka seeks encourages not an escape from the world but a deeper engagement with it.” — Jennifer Szalai, New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

• “Arrives not as an addition to the minimalist canon but as a corrective to it.” — Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

• “An intriguing deep dive into the many manifestations of minimalism. A superb outing from a gifted young critic that will spark joy in many readers.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

• “Alluringly titled, Chayka's insightful book connects a wide array of thought-provoking approaches to the concept of less is more.” — Booklist

• Reviews of the book have also appeared in The New Republic, Slate, LARB, Wall Street Journal, LitHub, and Washington City Paper.

• Interviews about the book appeared in publications including Vanity Fair and Hazlitt.