Giving the Bird by Ashley Longshore

Giving the Bird

Bird Stories by Ashley Longshore

Ashley Longshore

Rizzoli · Print & ebook · October 1, 2024

A collection of whimsical birds accompanied by hilarious and imaginative descriptions of the bird’s unique personalities from the over-the-top mind of the famed artist.

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Who it’s for
Ashley Longshore pairs maximalist bird paintings with irreverent descriptions of each bird’s personality and backstory.
Themes
Whimsical bird personalities, Absurd humor, Maximalist pop art
Genres
Animals & Plants in Art, Animal Humor, Pictorial Humor

About this book

A collection of whimsical birds accompanied by hilarious and imaginative descriptions of the bird’s unique personalities from the over-the-top mind of the famed artist. Inspired by a fan-favorite series of posts on Ashley Longshore’s popular Instagram account, the artist’s own colorful (and sometimes inappropriate!) bird descriptions and maximalist paintings give each bird a hysterical personality and backstory. Take Muffy, for example. What kind of bird does she look like?

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Muffy “lives in a nest above her neighborhood’s private tennis club. She studied abroad in London while in college and now calls her powder room the “loo” and refers to the movies as the “cinema” and she also calls her tennis shoes “trainers”...she has a mild lisp that gets much worse after her third glass of rosé...her stages of drunkenness are always the same: first she thinks she can sing, then she thinks she can dance and then she thinks she is invisible...during the stage of invisibility Muffy really lets it all out.” Or Penelope (pronounced “Penny-Lope”), a rotund, green and yellow fellow who “ain’t on Ozempic and has no interest in being traditionally thin...she lives in a nest made of M&M wrappers and Chanel tissue paper directly above the outdoor restaurant of a luxury vacation resort. She has an insatiable appetite for carb acquisition and an aerodynamic body built for snack zoomies. She is famous in bird hotel circles for her dramatic carb plunge, the “FLUFF SWOOP.” She snatches pastries from tourists with enviable precision. Some of the other birds get peanut butter and JEALOUS!” Longshore combines her brilliant humor and knack for storytelling with her dynamic pop art style and is sure to have readers rolling from the very first page.

Bird Personalities

Ashley Longshore pairs maximalist bird paintings with irreverent descriptions of each bird’s personality and backstory.

Come here for

  • Birds with distinct comic personalities and backstories
  • Dynamic pop art paintings

Expect

  • Whimsical birds, including Muffy and Penelope
  • Colorful art and sometimes-inappropriate humor

Where it sits

Animal Humor46%
Animals & Plants in Art39%
Pictorial Humor29%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Artist Essays
  • Pictorial Humor
  • Birdwatching
Authors
Ashley Longshore
Publisher
Rizzoli
Published
October 1, 2024
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Whimsical bird personalities · Absurd humor · Maximalist pop art
Reading lane
Artist Essays