Aga saga
The Aga saga is a subgenre of the family saga genre of literature. The genre is named for the AGA cooker, a type of stored-heat oven that came to be popular in medium to large country houses in the UK after its introduction in 1929. It refers primarily to fictional family sagas dealing with British "middle-class country or village life". The nickname "Aga saga" is sometimes used condescendingly about this type of fiction. The term was incorporated into the Oxford Companion to English Literature in 2000. Characteristics While the label has been applied to settings within other genres, it is typically interpreted to refer to "a tale of illicit rumpy-pumpy in the countryside" according to a 2007 article in The Observer. In setting, according to an earlier article in that paper, it offers a "gingham-checked world" associated with "thatched English villages" and "ladies in floral dresses". Guardian book critic Laura Wilson described an Aga saga setting as "complete with sprawling, untidy farmhouse (flagstones, dogs, Wellington boots, and much nursing of mugs of coffee)". Critical analyses The Times, in a 2004 article, characterized the genre as the "older sister of the sex 'n' shopping romances". According to a critical analysis in