Originally published: 29th September 2006 Original Title: The Marriage Market Author: Nisha Minhas Pagecount: 485pages (Paperback) Publisher: Pocket Books (A division of Simon & Schuster) Genre: Chick Lit, Romance, Adult Language: English ISBN-10: 141-652-256-5 ISBN-13: 978-141-652-256-0 Product Dimensions: 112 x 178mm
100 Word Book Review:
Aaron and Jeena are from 2 different worlds. With no understanding or knowledge of the Indian culture, much less the idealism, they proceed with the marriage of convenience. Written in a light and humorous way, it shows the different perspectives. Alas, it tends to focus more on race than culture with a stereotypical and biased view of males. Towards the end. it is a straight happy ending. Simple and beautiful with no plot twist or unexpected scenarios. A romantic chick lit of 2 unlikely persons who together for a short passion, yet ends up in a lifetime commitment.
About the Author:
In her early thirties, Nisha Minhas lives in Milton Keynes with her partner and two cats. A former employee of the Inland Revenue and an avid reader, Nisha couldn’t find any novels that really appealed to her, a young woman born in the UK to Indian parents. So she decided to write a book that she herself would really like to read.
Came across this list of genre definitions. It is very concise yet detailed. This is by far one of the most accurate and summarised versions of the literature genre.
Drama — Stories composed in verse or prose, usually for theatrical performance, where conflicts and emotion are expressed through dialogue and action.
Fable — Narration demonstrating a useful truth, especially in which animals speak as humans; legendary, supernatural tale.
Fairy Tale — Story about fairies or other magical creatures, usually for children.
Fantasy — Fiction with strange or other worldly settings or characters; fiction which invites suspension of reality.
Fiction — Narrative literary works whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
Fiction in Verse — Full-length novels with plot, subplot(s), theme(s), major and minor characters, in which the narrative is presented in (usually blank) verse form.
Folklore — The songs, stories, myths, and proverbs of a people or “folk” as handed down by word of mouth.
Historical Fiction — Stories with fictional characters and events in a historical setting.
Horror — Fiction in which events evoke a feeling of dread in both the characters and the reader.
Humor — Fiction full of un, fancy, and excitement, meant to entertain; but can be contained in all genres.
Legend — Story, sometimes of a national or folk hero, which has a basis in fact but also includes imaginative material.
Mystery — Fiction dealing with the solution of a crime or the unraveling of secrets.
Mythology — Legend or traditional narrative, often based in part on historical events, that reveals human behavior and natural phenomena by its symbolism; often pertaining to the actions of the gods.
Poetry — Verse and rhythmic writing with imagery that creates emotional responses.
Realistic Fiction — Story that can actually happen and is true to life.
Science Fiction — Story based on impact of actual, imagined, or potential science, usually set in the future or on other planets.
Short Story — Fiction of such brevity that it supports no subplots.
Tall Tale — Humorous story with blatant exaggerations, swaggering heroes who do the impossible with nonchalance.
All Nonfiction
Biography/Autobiography — Narrative of a person’s life, a true story about a real person.
Essay — A short literary composition that reflects the author’s outlook or point.
Narrative Nonfiction — Factual information presented in a format which tells a story.
Nonfiction — Informational text dealing with an actual, real-life subject.
Speech — Public address or discourse.
FILM GENRES
(Dirks)
Main Genres
Action – Usually include high energy, big-budget physical stunts and chases, possibly with rescues, battles, fights, escapes, destructive crises (floods, explosions, natural disasters, fires, etc.), non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing, and adventurous, often two-dimensional ‘good-guy’ heroes (or recently, heroines) battling ‘bad guys’ – all designed for pure audience escapism.
Adventure – Exciting stories, with new experiences or exotic locales, very similar to or often paired with the action film genre.
Comedy – Light-hearted plots consistently and deliberately designed to amuse and provoke laughter (with one-liners, jokes, etc.) by exaggerating the situation, the language, action, relationships and characters.
Crime & Gangster – Developed around the sinister actions of criminals or mobsters, particularly bankrobbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life.
Drama – Serious, plot-driven presentations, portraying realistic characters, settings, life situations, and stories involving intense character development and interaction. Usually, they are not focused on special-effects, comedy, or action.
Epics/Historical – Take a historical or imagined event, mythic, legendary, or heroic figure, and add an extravagant setting and lavish costumes, accompanied by grandeur and spectacle, dramatic scope, high production values, and a sweeping musical score.
Horror – Designed to frighten and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience.
Musicals/Dance – Cinematic forms that emphasize full-scale scores or song and dance routines in a significant way (usually with a musical or dance performance integrated as part of the film narrative), or they are films that are centered on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography.
Science Fiction – Often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative – complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters (‘things or creatures from space’), either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc.
War – Acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting (against nations or humankind) on land, sea, or in the air provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film.
Westerns – A eulogy to the early days of the expansive American frontier.
Sub-Genres
Biopics. . These films depict the life of an important historical personage (or group) from the past or present era. It covers many other genres.
Chick Flicks. Include formulated romantic comedies (with mis-matched lovers or female relationships), tearjerkers and gal-pal films, movies about family crises and emotional carthasis, some traditional ‘weepies’ and fantasy-action adventures, sometimes with foul-mouthed and empowered females, and female bonding situations involving families, mothers, daughters, children, women, and women’s issues. These films are often told from the female P-O-V, and star a female protagonist or heroine.
Detective/Mystery. Focuses on the unsolved crime (usually the murder or disappearance of one or more of the characters, or a theft), and on the central character – the hard-boiled detective-hero, as he/she meets various adventures and challenges in the cold and methodical pursuit of the criminal or the solution to the crime.
Disaster. Big-budget disaster films provided all-star casts and interlocking, Grand Hotel-type stories, with suspenseful action and impending crises (man-made or natural) in locales such as aboard imperiled airliners, trains, dirigibles, sinking or wrecked ocean-liners, or in towering burning skyscrapers, crowded stadiums or earthquake zones. Often noted for their visual and special effects, but not their acting performances.
Fantasy. Fantasies take the audience to netherworld places (or another dimension) where events are unlikely to occur in real life – they transcend the bounds of human possibility and physical laws. They often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, and the extraordinary.
Film Noir. Strictly speaking, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style or tone of various American film. Noirs are usually black and white films with primary moods of melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt and paranoia.
Guy Films. Composed of macho films that are often packed with sophomoric humor, action, cartoon violence, competition, mean-spirited putdowns and gratuitous nudity and sex.
Melodramas/Weepers. Characterized by a plot to appeal to the emotions of the audience.
Road Films. An episodic journey on the open road (or undiscovered trail), to search for escape or to engage in a quest for some kind of goal — either a distinct destination, or the attainment of love, freedom, mobility, redemption, the finding or rediscovering of onself, or coming-of-age (psychologically or spiritually).
Romance. These are love stories, or affairs of the heart that center on passion, emotion, and the romantic, affectionate involvement of the main characters (usually a leading man and lady), and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story the main plot focus.
Sports. Films that have a sports setting (football or baseball stadium, arena, or the Olympics, etc.), event (the ‘big game,’ ‘fight,’ ‘race,’ or ‘competition’), and/or athlete (boxer, racer, surfer, etc.) that are central and predominant in the story.
Supernatural. They have themes including gods or goddesses, ghosts, apparitions, spirits, miracles, and other similar ideas or depictions of extraordinary phenomena. Interestingly however, until recently, supernatural films were usually presented in a comical, whimsical, or a romantic fashion, and were not designed to frighten the audience.
Thriller/Suspense. They are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
California Department of Education. “Literary Genres.” – Recommended Literature (K-12) (CA Department of Education). California Department of Education, 20 Apr. 2011. Web. 05 May 2012. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/ll/litrlgenres.asp.
Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met? Suze Wilding and Lloyd Rockwell are perfect strangers. She lives in London, he lives in New York. They know nothing about each other – until one summer they exchange jobs and homes. Suze is impetuous, impatient and NEVER wants to get married. Lloyd is complicated, cautious, and contemplating marriage to the eminently suitable Betsy. But when Suze discovers a plot at work to get rid of Lloyd, the two begin communicating long-distance – and they wonder what might happen if they ever met face to face…
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For 18 years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other. Parents and children alike are best friends so it comes as no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily’s friendship blossoms into something more. But one night a call comes from the hospital – Emily has been shot dead.
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In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds–two men, two faiths, two communities–that will inspire readers everywhere.
Albom’s first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom’s old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.
Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he’d left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor–a reformed drug dealer and convict–who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.
Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.
As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds–and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.
In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor’s wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi’s last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.
Have a Little Faith is a book about a life’s purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man’s journey, but it is everyone’s story.
Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.
One of America’s most powerful and thought-provoking novelists, New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult brilliantly examines belief, miracles, and the complex core of family.
When the marriage of Mariah White and her cheating husband, Colin, turns ugly and disintegrates, their seven-year-old daughter, Faith, is there to witness it all. In the aftermath of a rapid divorce, Mariah falls into a deep depression — and suddenly Faith, a child with no religious background whatsoever, hears divine voices, starts reciting biblical passages, and develops stigmata. And when the miraculous healings begin, mother and daughter are thrust into the volatile center of controversy and into the heat of a custody battle — trapped in a mad media circus that threatens what little stability the family has left.
Northern China, 1899. As the Boxer Rebellion erupts, a cast of innocents, fanatics, sinners, and lovers are drawn to the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure – an infamous brothel that overlooks an execution ground – where the fury of the East will meet the ideals of the West and all will face their destiny. Adam Williams’s first novel is a historical tour-de-force and a triumphant return to traditional storytelling on a truly grand scale.
Lydia knows she should be more serious. It’s meant to be the end of trivia, but all she can think about when she watches the evening news is how the reporter on the front line manages to iron his shirt into such nice creases, and why Will doesn’t move about a bit more when he sings.
Some people have dreams that are so magnificent that if they were to achieve them, their place in history would be guaranteed. Francis Drake, Robert Scott, Charles Lindbergh, Amy Johnson, Edmund Hilary, Neil Armstrong, and Lewis and Clark are among such individuals.
But what if one man had such a dream, and once he’d fulfilled it, there was no proof that he had achieved his ambition?
Jeffrey Archer’s latest book, Paths of Glory, is the story of such a man—George Mallory. Mallory once told an American reporter that he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, “because it’s there.” On his third attempt in 1924, at age thirty-seven, he was last seen six hundred feet from the top. His body was found in 1999, and it still remains a mystery whether he ever reached the summit.
But only after you’ve turned the last page of this extraordinary novel, inspired by a true story, will you be able to decide if George Mallory’s name should be added to the list of legends, in which case another name would have to be removed. Paths of Glory is truly a triumph.
