The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide Review

A beautifully packaged full-color collection of literary tattoos and short personal essays, The Word Made Flesh is an intimate but anonymous confessional book, in the vein of thought-provoking anthologies like PostSecret and Not Quite What I Was Planning. Gorgeous photographs and candid commentary are collected by authors Eva Talmadge—whose short story “The Cranes” was cited as Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2008 in Dave Eggers’ Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009—and Justin Taylor, author of Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever, and editor of the acclaimed short fiction anthology, The Apocalypse Reader.

Book Description

The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide is a guide to the emerging subculture of literary tattoos—a collection of more than 150 full-color photographs of human epidermis indelibly adorned with quotations and illustrations from Dickinson to Pynchon, from Shakespeare to Plath. With beloved lines of verse, literary portraits, and illustrations—and statements from the bearers on their tattoos' history and the personal significance of the chosen literary work—The Word Made Flesh is part collection of photographs and part literary anthology written on skin.

What I Can Tell You:
I love looking at tattoos, so when this book come up for review through Harper Collins, I was excited to get it. Right before I received it in the mail a girlfriend mentioned the book to me. She wanted to get it, she was putting it in her Christmas list. It seems that book lovers have taken to putting the written word on their bodies. Whether it is a word, a phrase, a paragraph or sometimes an entire page from a book, readers are memorializing their favorites permanently.

The book is full of color photos of some amazing work right down to the picture and font used. There is a great assortment and some very inspiring pieces. Literally Tattoos has totally made me rethink my personal tattoo thoughts. Since I was 18 I have wanted a tattoo and at 25 actually went to a tattoo artists with picture in hand. Fortunately the guys wife went into labor and the tat never happened. Loved it at the time, but now I feel it would have been a mistake.

I really enjoyed looking at the 100 full color photos and even thinking about the books which inspired some pieces. My to read list has just gotten larger. 

Check out the Tumblr Tattoo Lit page for photos and descriptions if interested.

The Word Made Flesh - book trailer from Tattoolit on Vimeo.