Steal Like an Artist: Dewey Decimal Number and Edition Guide
Austin Kleon
Steal Like an Artist has 153.35 in the selected Library of Congress record for Austin Kleon’s 2012 Workman publication, ISBN 9780761169253. Its subject is creative ability. The title’s reference to an artist does not make the selected record a drawing-technique or art-history entry. Its contents instead point toward ways of approaching creative work, including beginning, experimenting, sharing, and working within limits. This guide follows the original publication and distinguishes it from a later anniversary hardcover described on the author’s website.
The edition behind this number
What practical concerns appear in the catalogue contents?
The recorded contents address getting started, making work by hand, side projects, sharing, relationships, routine, and reducing possibilities. That range is useful for a reader whose obstacle is the process of making work rather than a missing technical skill in one medium. Choose a topic that corresponds to a real difficulty: beginning an unfinished idea, deciding how much to include, or finding a useful form for sharing. The contents offer places to investigate, not a guarantee that one short principle will resolve every project.
Sources: [1]
For a small experiment, state the constraint before making a draft: a limited time, a fixed set of materials, or one clearly defined audience. Afterwards ask what the constraint made easier and what it prevented. This is an original exercise connected to the recorded concern with creative limits, not a reproduction of Kleon’s instructions. It gives you a concrete experience to compare with the book’s discussion and avoids treating an appealing phrase as useful merely because it sounds memorable.
Sources: [1]
How can you read the provocative title carefully?
The author identifies the book as an expansion of a talk about things he wished he had known when starting creative work. That origin frames the provocative title within advice about practice and influences. Read the title alongside the recorded topics about using your hands, sustaining side interests, working regularly, and sharing. Taken together, they direct attention toward making work over time. A discussion limited to the first phrase can miss that larger range of practical concerns, even though the subtitle explicitly presents a set of ten ideas.
A useful influence note can identify what attracted you to an example: its structure, its pace, a contrast, or a way of organising information. Then describe a different problem you want your own work to solve. Suppose a poster interests you because its crowded text becomes easy to scan. Investigate that organising decision instead of beginning with the assumption that your poster needs the same wording or appearance. This is our own discussion exercise. It makes influence something that can be examined and transformed through a new task rather than simply admired as a finished object.
Sources: [1]
Which publication does this ISBN identify?
The selected record names Workman Publishing Company and records copyright 2012. It lists the target thirteen-digit ISBN and the corresponding ten-digit form, 0761169253. The author’s website independently identifies the paperback ISBN and describes the book’s publication in February 2012. These details provide a consistent identity for the original publication represented here. When searching, use the author and subtitle as well as the main title if a result lacks clear format information; the title alone is not enough to distinguish all later presentations of the work.
The author also describes a later anniversary hardcover with a larger format and a new afterword. That is a concrete edition difference worth retaining if a group intends to discuss the added material. This page does not silently attach that later description to the original 2012 entry. A reader who wants the anniversary publication should identify that product separately. The relationship between the versions is useful context, but it does not establish that all material, pagination, and physical features are identical across the paperback and later hardcover.
What does the shared number with The Creative Act show?
The Creative Act’s selected 2023 record also gives 153.35 and includes creative ability among its subjects. It credits Rick Rubin with Neil Strauss. The shared number provides a clear catalogue connection between two books about creative practice, even though they have different authors, publication histories, and forms of presentation. A reader can use the pair to investigate one creative problem from more than one perspective. The number does not establish that the authors agree or that a passage in one book substitutes for reading the other.
A useful comparison starts by naming the obstacle precisely. An unfinished poster might lack a central idea, contain too many competing details, or remain unshared because its maker wants to keep revising. These are different problems. Kleon’s recorded contents supply concrete leads on beginning, subtraction, and sharing; Rubin’s broader creative-ability description invites a second perspective on the same project. Read relevant passages before deciding whether either speaks to the actual obstacle. This is a proposed comparison using the catalogue descriptions, not an invented claim that the two authors recommend the same solution.
When would a drawing manual be a better companion?
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has 741.2 in its selected record and subjects for drawing technique and visual perception. If your immediate problem is representing a form or observing a relationship between shapes, that more specific skill description offers a different route from creative ability in general. The comparison clarifies what a creative-practice book can be selected for without asking it to replace technical instruction. You can need help beginning a drawing and help with the drawing itself; those are connected but distinguishable tasks.
For that poster project, make a rough version before deciding which companion book to consult next. If the arrangement cannot be understood, identify the visual relationship that needs work. If the arrangement is clear but the project keeps expanding, return to the question of limits. If it is ready for a response, decide what you want a viewer to notice. This is our original application of the recorded creative-process topics. It separates making, judging and sharing into concrete decisions, so the book’s short principles can prompt work rather than become another collection of admired phrases.
Sources: [1]
Sources for this edition guide
The record lists a valid ISBN associated with this edition. That does not independently verify every metadata field, establish a universal number for every version, or give the complete local shelf location. Compare the source with your copy.
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Related edition examples
Compare these separately sourced books on related subjects. Their classifications apply to their own records.
- The Creative Act — 153.35
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