Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Mapping out your fav author.


One of the things I like about LibraryThing, is the way it connects you with readers and novels that you are likely to enjoy. Once you've begun entering in some of your titles, you can look to see who else has your picks, and then you can browse their selections to see if anything grabs your fancy. LT also has a "Suggester" that takes a title or author and tells you "if you liked that, then you might like this."

Just this week, I came across an interesting twist on the "Suggester" that uses a very cool interface: The Literature Map. What's great, is that you simply type in an author's name, and the site generates a name cloud of similar authors...names that are close are most similar. (...although, that may be up for argument!) It's a fun way to explore literary connections, in a "six-degrees-of-separation" kind of way. Take a look.