Odd Birds & Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary)

Peter Wortsman Aurélie Bernard Wortsman

Ravens in Berlin . . . Parakeets in Brooklyn . . . Chickens in Tel Aviv . . . Spiders in Cognac. City creatures spark the imagination and intellect in words and art by this father-daughter team.

Odd Birds & Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary) is an illustrated collection of brief observations on city creatures. Inspired by the tradition of the medieval bestiary, bestiarum vocabulum, a 12th-century bestselling genre that chronicled animals and beings both real and fantastical, the book features pithy impressions of birds and animals that delight, confound, and edify, written by Peter Wortsman, coupled with detailed naturalist artwork by his daughter, Aurélie Bernard Wortsman.

Featured creatures include:

• Pigeons: “When, finally, it takes flight . . . this asphalt-colored bird is like a piece of the pavement which by some fluke of gravity broke loose and is foolishly falling upward by mistake.” 
• Seagulls: “Fallen splinters of eternity, they hang overhead with the equanimity and mild disdain of angels in a medieval altarpiece, and unlike pigeons, refuse any direct contact with man.”
• Ants: “Micro-managers in three-piece bodies, ants parody human antics to a tee. Or is it the other way around?”
• Dust mites: “Every time you scratch yourself or comb your hair, you are feeding the tiny intruders with the detritus of self.”

With four-color images throughout, printed in a beautiful hardbound edition, this one-of-a-kind volume will please the discerning animal lover, traveler, art lover, iconoclast, and literati on your gift list—and, of course, also you!

• “Here is a gorgeous example of literary animal husbandry by two artists who give us learning with joy. A beautiful book in every way.” —ROGER ROSENBLATT, author, most recently, of Cold Moon, Cataract Blues, and A Steinway on the Beach


• "Under the guise of a bestiary, the Wortsman father-daughter duo has produced a keenly written and beautifully drawn account of our encounters, ideas, fantasies, and familiars in the city. The more I read, the more I was delightfully surprised at the generosity of their vision and depth of their shared wisdom." —DAN NADEL, Curator at Large, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art


• “Each of these miniature worlds—whether we are given to contemplate a spider drunk on cognac or a seagull “patiently and dispassionately” devouring a pigeon run over on a highway—has its own climate and dimensions. By turns lyrical, gruesome, comically exhilarating or abruptly somber, grotesque or fantastic, they uncover startling likenesses in the heart of the apparently alien (ants are “micromanagers in three-piece bodies”), and strange landscapes in the corners of the ordinary. From the vestigial hind toe of the pigeon to the crannies of the aging human face, any small glance or turn of phrase can turn into an unsettling adventure. Following in the ancient footsteps of Pliny the Elder and Saint Isidore of Seville, the Wortsmans create their own singular bestiary, in which the tiniest spaces are cavernous and full of hidden histories.” —GEOFFREY O'BRIEN, author of Arabian Nights of 1934