Written on the body: how about a literary tattoo?

So you say you love David Mitchell with a passion. But do you really? Really truly? OK, you've read all the books, pored over interviews, and quoted your favourite passages endlessly to your friends, particularly late at night after a few drinks. But here's the clincher – do you have his initials tattooed in baroque script on your forearm? A fetching design inspired by Cloud Atlas inked across your shoulderblades? No? Then you're just a lightweight, my friend, and you don't know the true meaning of literary devotion.

In America, it appears that certain ink-friendly literati are so into their books that they're getting tributes to them engraved on their bodies. US publisher Black Ocean is impressed by fans who have had a fetching black-and-white telephone tattoo inspired by the work of its author Zachary Schomburg, writer of The Man Suit, permanently marked on their bodies. In fact the publisher says it will give a lifetime subscription – one copy of every book the publisher produces – as a thank you to anyone who follows suit with a tattoo inspired by a Black Ocean title. (It has to be for real, though: temporary henna tattoos don't count, although they merit "well wishes and fond memories".)

"Just send us a picture of you getting your tattoo (so we know it's not simply a magic marker), or find one of us in person and expose yourself to us (with fair warning)," the publisher's blog offers cheerily.

We in the UK seem to be a little behindhand. A quick call to the Into You tattoo parlour in Clerkenwell shows a disappointing lack of traffic from literary Londoners. No, owner Alex Binnie is not inundated with requests for book-inspired designs, although text is increasingly popular, he tells me. "Biblical passages are a favourite – 'Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death' is one. And I've done a tattoo for 'Where the bee sucks, there suck I', from The Tempest," he says.

Has anyone asked, say, for a dragon tattoo in homage to Stieg Larsson's punky heroine Lisbeth Salander? "No. Maybe somewhere out in the sticks they're doing that, but this is Clerkenwell, darling. We're more likely to get someone asking for a TS Eliot quote."

Personally I'm not letting any needles near my cherished epidermis just because I like reading, though I do fancy a verse if I could find one I could live with permanently. But what literary tribute do you have inked on your body, or would you choose were you a slightly cooler, more adventurous and pain-resistant version of yourself? A rendering of Howard Jacobson's imposing profile, designed to be shown off to advantage in a sleeveless top? A riff on the Jilly Cooper cover for Riders, using your own behind? Surely there's a generation out there wearing their favourite Harry Potter wizard as a permanent accessory? We should be told.