Midweek List of Genre Related Links

I am constantly bookmarking specific links I find interesting and then saving them to blog about.  However, my list of "interesting" stuff is getting too long and I don't know if I have enough to say about each for an entire blog post.  So, here they are with a comment or two from me:

• Normally I am not a big romance reader, but this list of the Top 10 Love Stories of the 21st Century (so far) which I came across via my RSS feed to the blog The Book Case piqued my interest.  More than half of the titles here (The History of Love, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Bel Canto, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Brief Wondrous Like of Oscar Wao, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society--links to my personal reviews) are books I have read and enjoyed.  Who knew?  None of them are romance novels, but they all do have a love relationship at their center.
• I have posted many times about the copious amounts of dark fiction that has been coming out of Scandinavia over the last few years, but on NPR yesterday, author Heidi Durrow had this interesting list, "Three Books to Rescue Nordic Lit From the Dark Side."  Yes, Nordic Noir is quite popular right now, but their are good authors from the region writing completely different novels.  The list serves as a great reminder that trends are not absolutes.
• From my RSS feed to Grasping For the Wind, I found this link on SF Signal, "10 Literary Novels for Genre Readers."  This list is interesting because as the post explains: "There are plenty of guides to gateway books for literary readers to discover SF/F, but very few to introduce primarily genre readers to literary works they would find enjoyable. And so, in the spirit of reconciliation, I've compiled this short list of books that fill the gap between speculative and so called realistic fiction. It is by no means comprehensive but should serve as a decent introduction for genre readers to see how the other half lives."  This is a list I will use with readers immediately.  The annotations are well written.  They are focused on why a genre reader would enjoy the suggested title.
• Two big genre awards announced their finalists recently.  The Agatha Awards for the best traditional mysteries and the Nebula Award given out by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.