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The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide is exactly what it claims to be: A collection of tattoos inspired by books. There are tons of photos of quotes, images, covers, and other literary topics in tattoo form. (There are also quite a few unintentional shots of skin problems like ingrown hairs and peeling, flaking skin.)

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As someone who does not have (and does not intend to get) a tattoo, I admit to being intrigued by why people choose the tattoos they do. And as someone who loves reading, I'm especially interested in tattoos that are readable. The problem with Flesh is that it's all surface. People give a pat answer about the literary reference they chose—In Search of Lost Time "changed [their] life," they chose to have the entire alphabet drawn in a circle around their wrists because words are important to them—and then you move on. It's a decidedly unliterary book: It feels too slim and too shallow.

If the subject matter is interesting to you, I'd suggest reading Body Type and Body Type 2: More Typographic Tattoos instead. Though not every tattoo here has a literary source, the interviews feel much less cursory. For example: The owner of a "What is past is prologue" tattoo discusses why she chose those words (she's an abuse survivor) and the font (Palatino is "a book font.") The interviews only run to blurb-length, at most a modest paragraph, but they feel more incisive, more telling of the interviewee. The Body Type books feel more like solid, substantive art books (though of course not every tattoo is a winner—see the woman who had "OBAMA" tattooed upside down on the inside of her bottom lip). They're more worth your while.