Tag-Me Tuesday: The Perfect Book Tag

Well, the Dumbest Blogger at The Dumbest Blog Ever has tagged me with this but unlike the many “awards” out there, this one is just questions about the subject at hand. So many awards are only gimmicks to just get back-links and increase stats but to me, this is different because it doesn’t pretend to be an award of any sort, but is more like the various tagging games we used to do in the blogging world in bygone years and before that in the e-mail world, back in the old days. I prefer this over most of the bogus “awards” out there. My “Warrior of Northwich” award badge, which I display proudly, was something I had to work at and that makes it different, in my mind, from the others. Please don’t misunderstand, I do enjoy getting tagged from time-to-time, but just call it that. Tag-Me Tuesday is not planned to be a regular thing but I liked the alliteration of it. I literally like alliteration.

This tag was a real challenge to me as I have read quite a few books and stories in my time but never really categorized them so much as just enjoyed them and went on my way. I also had to make my memory work on some parts and the sound of grinding gears was a bit much. I’m also going to approach this one differently than other participants have because I am going to try to do it from both a secular and a biblical perspective. I will take the Bible as a library of sixty-six books and try to pick a book or story that fits in the question really well. It may not fit well in every category, though. I have tagged several people at the end who I would like to see do this, but they aren’t the only ones. You can do it, too. If you do, please tag me back and let me know. I listed all the questions together below to make it easier to find. Answer as many or as few as you like.

I put the name of the game back to “The Perfect Book Tag” even though nothing Earthly is perfect and it rightly should be called the “Pretty Good Book Tag” as Dumbest did. I did it just because that’s what the game started out as. But maybe the name perfect is right for it since this has been perfectly hard to do. But, oh well, here are my entries:

The Perfect Genre
(pick a book that perfectly represents the genre)
As an aside, I think that saying, “The Perfect Genre,” is very different from picking a book that perfectly represents a genre.

The Western genre is probably one of the most misunderstood because people don’t realize that the “Wild West” was populated with a lot of different kinds of people and characters. My choice is Flint, by Louis L’Amour. Not only is it an exciting story from page one but it could easily win for the perfect plot twist and perfect ending as well.

The book of the Bible that represents Its meaning and intent is the Gospel of John. Written by “that disciple whom Jesus loved,” it came much later than the other three Gospels and has a very different perspective. As a sub-plot, you can see the character of Nicodemus grow from sneaking around at night to boldly speaking up to even more boldly helping bury the body.

The Perfect Setting
(pick a book that takes place in a perfect place)

It’s set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A book set in da U.P.? You betcha, hey! If you’ve ever visited up there then you know it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. You have to know how to live in the winter, though.

And Biblically, what more perfect place for a setting than the Garden of Eden in Genesis. Before all that nasty business with the snake.

The Perfect Main Character
(pick the perfect main character)

Mattie Ross in the book True Grit: “People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.”

Main characters in the Bible, like most main characters in literature and every one of us, are generally flawed individuals. Moses, for one example, is a central character and he was a real hothead. Elijah suffered from apparent clinical depression. King David was an adulterer, a murderer, and an occasional doubter but yet he was a man after God’s own heart. Because God doesn’t require perfection, he requires willingness and obedience.

The Perfect Best Friend
(loyal and supportive, pick a character that you think is the best friend ever)

Ford Prefect went out of his way to save Arthur Dent from being blown up when the Earth was destroyed to make way for a hyperspatial bypass. And he taught him about that altogether amazing book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with “DON’T PANIC” printed in large, friendly letters on the cover.

In the Bible, one of the most obvious best friendships is between Jonathan and David. There is so much to be said about it that you would be best served reading it for yourself in First Samuel. Built on mutual respect and admiration and the power that comes from a covenant with God.

The Perfect Love Interest

So Long and Thanks For All The Fish, the fourth book in the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, is a great reprieve for Arthur Dent, romantically, when he meets Fenchurch.

Biblically, one of the most beautiful stories of love is the story of Ruth. Her love for Naomi and her God and His ways, then for Boaz, is a beautiful, gentle story of love in adversity. The book of Ruth is only four short chapters, you can read it.

The Perfect Villain
(pick a character with the most sinister mind)

Probably the most vile character I have ever met anywhere in literature, in the Bible or not in the Bible, is Jonadab, the friend of Amnon. The word subtle (spelled subtil in the King James) is only used three times in the whole King James Bible: once to describe the serpent in the Garden, Once to describe a purposely adulterous harlot and finally to describe this man who was as much a snake in the grass as the original serpent was. Even though Amnon did the deed and forced his half-sister, Tamar, it was Jonadab who planned it all out for him and told him exactly what to do and how to perfect the plan. He later covered for Amnon’s murder by Tamar’s brother. My dad used to say there was every kind of story you ever wanted to read in the Bible and this is a prime example. 2 Samuel 13 tells the whole nasty story.

The Perfect Family
(pick the perfect bookish family)

The Sacketts in the Louis L’Amour books. From the hills of Tennessee, they came West and if one Sackett is in trouble, they’re all in to help him out. The Sackett Brand, pictured above, is a great example of this, but if you’ve never read a Sackett book and/or the only Western you’ve ever read is The Virginian by Owen Wister because you had to in high school or Code of the West by Zane Grey then this is absolutely not the best place to start. If you want a guide to how to read the whole Sackett series, please feel free to use the guide I made up and which is a permanent part of the whole website. It’s actually what made me want to write a website in the first place. My Chronology. If you just want to read a good Western, Flint, pictured earlier, is a great start but is not related to the Sackett series.

I know. It isn’t the Bible, but The Adventures of Tom Sawyer shows that family isn’t only by birth. His Poor Aunt Polly trying to raise him right and when you see how he actually did turn out, to be brave and true, she must have done something right.

The Perfect Animal or Pet
(pick a pet or fantastic animal you need to see or like to see on/in a book)

Bowdrie had never known a horse with so much personality and all of it bad. In this book of short stories, we meet Bowdrie and learn that he caught the horse wild and his friends told him the horse looked like a killer and advised him to let it go or kill it. Bowdrie and the horse were made for each other. One time someone tried to steal the horse and after the horse had thrown him into a water trough he bit the thief on the shoulder, shook him by it and broke the shoulder. He was the perfect animal for Bowdrie.

In the Bible, I have always been fascinated by the story of Balaam’s donkey. The part that still fascinates me is that the Bible says that God opened the donkey’s mouth, but it was the donkey expressing her own feelings.

The Perfect Plot Twist
(pick a book with the best plot twist)

The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare (could also fit the best ending) – when MacDuff reveals he was not born of woman in the normal way, but by what we now call cesarean birth:

Macbeth:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.

MacDuff:
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripp’d.

In the Bible story of Esther I think Haman getting hung on his own gallows is a fairly good plot twist.

The Perfect Trope
(pick that trope you would add to your own book without thinking)

Okay, so trope is one of those words like meme, that has changed meaning over time and I really don’t know if I know what it means or how to use it correctly and definitions vary. Yes, I googled it.

The Perfect Cover
(pick a cover you would want on your own book)

This question is just silly, really. How could I pick a cover of a book, that is someone else’s and then put it on my book? I suppose I could find some art or photography somewhere but it’s really just not a thing I want to do right now. Besides, I haven’t come close to finishing my book. Not only that, but there also are a lot of covers that have absolutely nothing to do with the story itself. I guess at this point in time it would be the cover of the handcrafted leather journal that my wife gave me for Christmas.

The Perfect Ending
(pick a book that has the perfect ending)

Have Spacesuit – Will Travel by Robert Heinlein is an awesome story that anybody could and most everybody should, read. It has everything you could want in a Golden Age Science Fiction story: Bug-eyed monsters, gentle yet hyper-intelligent aliens, travel to Pluto and Vega 5, and an alien base on the moon. To me, one of the greatest parts of the story is what happens to Ace Quiggle at the end. I really don’t want to tell you because, even though Ace is a very minor character in the book, there is something about the bully getting his comeuppance that is a lot of fun.

The end of the Book of Revelation, is of course, the whole end of everything.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

(Rev 21:3-4 KJV)

Tag Someone Else
(this is where you get to tag someone else to do this) 12 questions was a lot so if the people tagged below would be willing but don’t want to do all of them, then just do the ones you’d like to do. I also made it harder on myself by more or less doing it twice, which I don’t expect anyone else to do.

The Perfect Genre
(pick a book that perfectly represents the genre)
The Perfect Setting
(pick a book that takes place in a perfect place)
The Perfect Main Character
(pick the perfect main character)
The Perfect Best Friend
(loyal and supportive, pick a character that you think is the best friend ever)
The Perfect Love Interest

The Perfect Villain
(pick a character with the most sinister mind)
The Perfect Family
(pick the perfect bookish family)
The Perfect Animal or Pet
(pick a pet or fantastic animal you need to see or like to see on/in a book)
The Perfect Plot Twist
(pick a book with the best plot twist)
The Perfect Trope
(pick that trope you would add to your own book without thinking)
The Perfect Cover
(pick a cover you would want on your own book)
The Perfect Ending
(pick a book that has the perfect ending)

There are a couple of people I would really enjoy seeing do this if they would or even if they have time. I hope they do. If I overlooked you and you decide to do it, let me know and I will definitely come to have a look. I didn’t tag Ben because he was already tagged by Dumbest.

In no particular order, my requests are:
Author Sarah Angleton
Petra
Isabell W
SaaniaaSparkle
Lydia