Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon Book Review

I have had Steal Like An Artist few years now on my kindle and never got to reading it till the end. Until I bought it recently as a hard copy. Something about this little book and its format is demanding to be read from an actual hard copy as opposed to reading it from a screen.

I was in a book shop, saw the book and grabbed it. In a week or so I went back and bought the other two titles that follow this little gem. Show Your Work! and Keep Going (you can read more about it here .

Basically if I was to sum things up. This book is all about reminding us that we don’t have to re invent the wheel. Come to think of it, everything out there has been done or is now in the making as I type this. The reality is we steal from each other in forms of inspiration and then come up with new things.

To quote Austin Kelon in his book on page 7 : “What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.”

Of course there are ways of borrowing and getting inspired aka Kleon’s referral to stealing like an artist. Ways that are within the common curtesy of respecting others property.Taking something that is out there and making something completely new. Something that says you.

I wish I had this book back during my uni days while doing interior design major. I remember how I used to put this immense pressure on my self to create something new, something original from thin air! Truth be told such thing doesn’t exist and this little book will teach you that. We are constantly inspired by things around us. Wether it’s nature, life or other peoples work.