Via Maud Newton, I’ve just discovered Literature Map, a digital ‘tourist map’ of authors based on a self-adapting artificial intelligence engine that learns from the behaviour and preferences of users of the system. Type in an author name and it will display a map of other author names, spaced relative to your original selection. The closer two names are (graphically) the higher the likelihood that you’ll enjoy reading both authors. For instance, I typed in “Jeffrey Ford” and the two nearest authors displayed on the map were Jorge Luis Borges and Jonathan Safran Foer, a pretty fine trio of writers. Try it out, it’s fun!
Next stop: Borges
May 10, 2008 · 4 comments
Kate Eltham is a writer and creative industries professional based in Brisbane, Australia. She is Chief Executive Officer of 
kate.eltham {at} gmail.com
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Hmmm… looks really neat… except for that when I typed in Octavia Butler, one of the names it threw up was Jackie Collins!!!
Yikes! I guess the AI hasn’t adapted very well yet. Then again, I’ven ever read a Jackie Collins novel. Perhaps under all the bodice-ripping there are some serious social SF themes and ideas. You never know…
Articulated thus…
http://blogs.abc.net.au/articulate/2008/05/expand-your-rea.html
(Cat: if it’s AI, it will eventually learn the difference between OB and JC… shortly before attaining sentience and sparking a nuclear war to wipe out all humanity)
There’s a fair bit of gender and regional bias in it as well. So, type in an Australian author like Kate Grenville and Tim Winton pops up as her closest match. He’s also up there closest with Peter Carey. And Salman Rushdie doesn’t have any link to Carey when I think there’s a lot in common there.
Still a lot of fun and helped me remember a number of authors I haven’t read for a while.