Literature Map Website

20 years ago

Someone posted this in another forum and I though it was cool. This site supposedly offers up similar style authors when you type in your favorite authorÂs name. The closer in proximity in names, the more likely you are to like that other author. For instance, typing in Michael ConnellyÂs name brought up a great many authors already near and dear to my heart, as well as some IÂll now have to research. I donÂt know if I necessarily agree with their picks, though. Anyone else want to give it a try?

Literature Map

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Comments (15)

ccrdmrbks
20 years ago
Interesting!
frances_md
20 years ago
I tried it with a few of my favorite authors and I don't generally agree with their choices. While I am familiar with many of the other authors I don't consider most of them to be in the same category and I don't like any of them nearly as well as the name I entered.

It is a good concept, though, and it was fun to see who came up. I don't pretend that my taste in authors is the same as that of anyone else so maybe it is much more accurate than it seemed to me.
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The best part seems to be that the site allows for discussion of the work. Perhaps, just perhaps, I'll actually get Ulysses read. RSS is great for sites one reads regularly but not necessarily everything on it. It works something like the news aggregator one can set up on a "My Yahoo!" page, if you have that. Great for Blogs. One can set up an RSS to update regularly (15 minutes, daily, manually, whatever.) So one gets a page with a list of all the sites one wants to monitor, all the recent headlines from that site, and either part or all of the story. I use Sharpreader which was recommended by Slate, which has a good explanation. Which RSS Reader do you use, Martin and Russ? And how do you like it?
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I just tried calling up the famous Yorkshire writers who flourished in the '50s & '60s - Alan Sillitoe (Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner), John Braine (Room at the Top), David Storey (This Sporting Life), Stan Barstow (A Kind of Loving) - and the only one they seem to have heard of is Stan Barstow..... Amazing! I even drew a blank on J.B. Priestley (The Good Companions, An Inspector Calls, Angel Pavement etc). Dido
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Eons ago,and almost certainly here, someone introduced me to the Literature Map website. If you type in the name of an author you enjoy, the screen pops up with other authors who write in a similar vein. It hasn't been perfect for recommendations, but it has occasionally introduced me to a new-to-me author that I've loved. https://www.literature-map.com/ I just finished Ann Patchett's The Dutch House and it was terrific. She has a gift for writing family dynamics. The narrative hopped around in time quite a bit, but I felt that by doing so, she added layers to the story as each segment helped to bring the main characters' lives more clearly into focus. It was a really good book, and one that I'd meant to read quite some time ago.
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vtchewbecca
20 years ago
Frances, that's funny. I've known about this site for a while and when I entered my favorite author, tons of my other favorites came up (even if they were in totally different genres). Of course, up came a few that I didn't like, but for the most part it was spot-on. And I found a few new authors via this site.

Dorianne - thanks for posting this site, I'd forgotten about it. Time to surf it again, I think.
dorieann
Original Author
20 years ago
Want a laugh? Type in Marquis De Sade. Not only is Peter Benchley nearby, so is Dr. Seuss, Barbara Cartland, and (strangely) Jesus. Now thereÂs a similar group of authors for you!
woodnymph2_gw
20 years ago
Well, I dunno....I typed in Daphne duMaurier and was given as a response the following: "God", "Anne Rivers Siddons", "Rosamund Pilcher" and "Montgomery" (author of the "Anne" books). I hardly think DuMaurier is in the same category as the others! LOL. On the other hand, when I typed in Paul Bowles, I received both Paul Theroux and Laurence Durrell. Anyhow, it was fun....
twobigdogs
20 years ago
Thanks for the link. What fun! I entered, of course, George Gissing. When the map finally settled, there was my George in the middle and the other authors listed were wayyyyy on the far edges with no one anywhere near him. Does this mean George Gissing is one of a kind?

The others on the outer fringes of the map were Upton Sinclair, Saul Bellow, Edward Rutherfurd, P.G. Wodehouse, Colin Wilson, Hermann Hesse, Ovid, Kafka, Conrad and Ken Follett. In my experience with these authors and George Gissing, they have nothing in common other than all wrote books.

PAM
carolyn_ky
20 years ago
It was fun, but for Barbara Michaels they included Jan Karon. Not hardly!

For the others I put in, along with some that I like, several came up that I hate. Is a real person reading these authors?
Kath
20 years ago
I have to agree. I tried Mark Billingham who writes British police procedurals, and got sci-fi writers and American crime writers - no other Brits that I recognised.
And much as I like both Bill Bryson and Diana Gabaldon, I don't think they should be on the same page!

But it is a good idea.
sheriz6
20 years ago
What a fun site! I came away with five new-to-me authors to try (I vetted them on Amazon after they came up as suggestions). The site's a little erratic, perhaps, but very cool.
martin_z
20 years ago
I think Stan Barstow would be honoured to find that Pushkin is very very close to him.

I wonder who and how it "works"?
dido1
20 years ago
Martin,

But Stan Barstow and Agatha Christie???????

D.
martin_z
20 years ago
Yes, well, I wasn't going to mention that...!!
anyanka
20 years ago
On another page of that website you can enter three writers you like. I put in Atwood, McEwan and Salinger (off the top of my head) and it suggested that I would like George ORWELLS. I'm not impressed. Unless this is the secret lovechild of H.G. and George.
april_bloom
20 years ago
This is interesting. I wonder where the data comes from. Apparently it's a "what other authors do 'fans' of blankity blank author read" site.
rouan
20 years ago
I tried several favorite authors but the one that made me laugh was Ellis Peters and Karl Marx. Yes, Karl Marx is supposed to be a good choice for someone who wants to read an author similar to Ellis Peters. Hmmmm.