Why read The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing?

Book cover of The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing

Book description

Clarence St. Claire is a programmer who cherishes an orderly life. His motto: ‘work is important; people, not so much’. His determination to be The Most Serious Person on the Planet is threatened when he becomes haunted by a mysterious manuscript from his past: 300 pages of possibly random bird…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Dave Walsh

Author

I’m really not sure how to talk about this book sometimes. There’s a kinetic energy to it that comes from the breathless literary allusions before descending into a labyrinth of the most surreal of the greats. I mean, the title itself is derived from a work by Italo Calvino, and Calvino is perhaps, at times, a character in this book, along with Jorge Luis Borges, Philip K. Dick, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, and others.

If you’re going to not just evoke a list of great authors, but integrate them into your work, you’ve got to wield them with a…

From Dave's 3 favorite reads in 2023.