it's in a book

Check out these shirts featuring iconic book covers, from Out of Print (viaReady-Made blogs.) As a bibliophile and cover art junkie, I love the idea. I think some of the cover art works out better as a tshirt than others. Some screams "book cover!" while others are an interesting graphic statement on their own. Still, at $28 the tshirts aren't unreasonably priced and Out of Print donates one book to a community in need in Africa through their partner Books for Africa. (You knew I had to link that, right?)

I loved the Catcher in the Rye and love the choice of this cover for a shirt. Would I feel like a phony wearing it? Since I've read the book dozens of times, definitely not.

Fahrenheit 451 is another favorite of mine. My copy didn't have this image, I'm pretty sure if was more minimal but I'm guessing this was the original cover. It's a solid choice for the tshirt because it's interesting but clearly reads as the book cover. The "read and destroy" seals the image for me.

Walden just doesn't excite me as a tshirt. It looks like "I loved the book Walden so I bought a shirt with it on the cover. Period." Blah.

When I first read on Ready-Made about this company, I knew there was one cover that I would have to buy the shirt of if it was available. Sadly, Out of Print has the Fitzgerald above (a very nice shirt) but not the one I'm obsessed with.

I love the Great Gatsby but I fell in love with the cover before I read the book. While reading, I frequently closed the book to study the cover for connections. In fact, I wrote a paper in 10th grade about the connections between the colors/images on the cover and the story itself. In Puerto Rico, I saw someone with just the woman from the cover tattooed on his arm and immediately recognized the image (and accosted him but he was glad to discuss his favorite piece of literature.)

The cover art was commissioned while the book was being written and the artist didn't have the whole book to read. After the cover art was done, Fitzgerald saw it and liked it so much that he "wrote it into the book."

Out of Print, please make a Great Gatsby shirt!