Greg McKeown’s excellent new book is a much-needed antidote to the stress, burnout and compulsion to “do everything,” that infects us all. It is an essential read for anyone who wants to regain control of their health, wellbeing, and happiness

Do you feel it, too? That relentless pressure to sample all the good things in life? To do all the 'right' things? The reality is, you don’t make progress that way. Instead, you’re in danger of spreading your efforts so thin that you make no impact at all. Greg McKeown believes the answer lies in paring life down to its essentials. He can’t tell you what’s essential to every life, but he can help you find the meaning in yours.

Entrepreneurs succeed when they say "yes" to the right project, at the right time, in the right way. To accomplish this, they have to be good at saying "no" to all their other ideas. Essentialism offers concise and eloquent advice on how to determine what you care about most, and how to apply your energies in ways that ultimately bring you the greatest rewards

Essentialism holds the keys to solving one of the great puzzles of life: how can we do less but accomplish more? A timely, essential read for anyone who feels overcommitted, overloaded, or overworked—in other words, everyone. It has already changed the way that I think about my own priorities, and if more leaders embraced this philosophy, our jobs and our lives would be less stressful and more productive. So drop what you’re doing and read it.

As a self-proclaimed "maximalist" who always wants to do it all, this book challenged me and improved my life. If you want to work better, not just less, you should read it too.

Great design takes us beyond the complex, the unnecessary and confusing, to the simple, clear and meaningful. This is as true for the design of a life as it is for the design of a product. With Essentialism, Greg McKeown gives us the invaluable guidebook for just such a project.

A unique contribution that combines not only remarkable lessons of what it takes to build an enterprise from scratch, but how a global phenomenon of entrepreneurship is solving problems, bottom up, once thought only the domain of top-down government and large institutions

Closely reported and brilliantly written … highly entertaining… Exemplary in its clarity… this story is full of surprises as well

This is the definitive history of a media revolution… I was hooked late into the night… There are lots of big lessons here… it is the story of all creative industries, and in the end, the internet itself

You need to get hold of Stephen Witt's jaundiced, whip-smart, superbly reported and indispensable How Music Got Free

Fascinating… An engrossing story… surely the year's most important music book

Astonishing

Enthralling

An accomplished first book… So compelling

Lucid, page-turning, engaging… A cross between a nail-biting true-crime story and the type of blow-by-blow books penned by Bob Woodward… Deeply sourced and dramatic

Witt's first book has great strengths — primarily that he is a natural storyteller, with an eye for character and the ability to digest large amounts of technical detail, and turn it into a colourful tale

Scorching investigative history of how the music industry found itself staring catastrophe in the face... Full of colourful characters... Essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our creative industries

This is a riveting account of greed, huge characters and the collapse of a kind of empire, and will be the benchmark by which future books are judged

The richest explanation to date about how the arrival of the MP3 upended almost everything about how music is distributed, consumed and stored

A rare thing… Compulsively readable

Definitive exploration of the turmoil the music industry has experiences in the last 20 years

A surprisingly engaging guide

Remarkable

Hats off to Witt…because the book he’s delivered is sensational: lucid, informative, breathlessly exciting, with the pounding narrative tempo of a first-class thriller

Witt brings the many-layered tale to vibrant life

Witt’s sharp prose and pace grips... His narrative hurtles like a thriller toward the “sin cleansing” development of iTunes and the profit shift from recorded to live music. It is – in both senses – a ripping yarn

One of the most gripping investigative books of the year - my mind reels at who will play Glover in the inevitable movie adaptation

An exhaustive and entertaining account of how digital music piracy started, what effect it had on the industry and who was involved

Jaundiced, whip-smart, superbly reported and indispensable

Brilliant… Witt's account is every bit as riveting as a thriller… Required reading for anybody interested in how we came to consume music today

It’s a truly terrific read. Thoughtful, compelling, action-packed (surprisingly), utterly robust and guaranteed to be one of those nonfictions you rip through as if it was a novel by your favourite author

Excellent

A terrific tale of music piracy at the dawn of the digital era

The collapse of the music industry, thanks to the emergence of the internet and illegal downloading, is told here with all the urgency and colour of a thriller

Witt tells the captivating and tense story of how the digital music revolution transformed the music industry, and made criminals out of many of us. Read it to learn all about a landmark moment in music and technology that still affects us today.

His book is a tour de force, delving into the criminal underworld of hackers and pilferers as well as the complacent corporate boardroom

A must-read. It flows like a captivating novel.

A terrific book… Rich and fascinating.

Page-­turner about how piracy nearly destroyed the established music industry.

A great read.

Brilliant.

Witt skillfully and thoroughly documents this “warez” scene of file sharers… Absolutely enthralling, and occasionally cinematic.

Beautifully told.