if you like . . .

For today's tribute to Banned Books Week, I thought I would combine the week with a little feature I have linked in my sidebar--the Literature Map. The basic premise here is simple: you type in an author's name, and the site will show you a slough of authors who are similar. Mostly I like playing with it because it's fun to watch the authors' names explode and drift on the screen.

For my list today, I'm going to use the Book Sense list. Just because I want to.

So, if you like . . .

Harper Lee then you should also read . . . Hmm. The closest author appears to be Emily Bronte. Though Edith Wharton, Phillipa Gregory, Alice Sebold, and Bernard Cornwell are kinda sorts nearby.

Brent Hartinger then you should also read . . . Well, the computer says he's not yet available. I guess my recommendations would be David Levithan, Alex Sanchez, and Julie Anne Peters.

Lois Lowry then you should also read . . . Judy Blume. VC Andrews, Susanna Kaysen, and Fern Michaels are also in near proximity.

Helen Bannerman then you should also read . . . She's not yet available either. And I haven't read her, so I can't even throw out my own ideas there.

Toni Morrison then you should also read . . . You get heaps o' choices with this one--F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Carson McCullers, Emily Bronte, and Willa Cather, just to start.

Aldous Huxley then you should also read . . . Sheesh. He gets even more than Morrison, and they're practically on top of one another--Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Hermann Hesse, Kurt Vonnegut, James Joyce, Milan Kundera, Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, Tom Robbins, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Umberto Eco, Jack Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, and Oscar Wilde.

Judy Blume then you should also read . . . Weird. Apparently the closest match is J. R. R. Tolkien. Yeah. Such weirdness. If you hit the next level out, you can read Lurlene McDaniel or Lois Lowry.

J. K. Rowling then you should also read . . . It looks like the closest match wants to be Arthur C. Clarke. But you also get Philip Pullman, Douglas Adams, and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Yevgeny Zamyatin then you should also read . . . His chart is fairly spartan; however, you still get a good reading of Gustave Flaubert with a touch of Orson Scott Card, Douglas Adams, and Neil Gaiman.

Chris Crutcher then you should also read . . . And our last one today also has a number of similar authors--Wendelin Van Draanen, Will Shetterly, Richard Peck, Karen Hesse, and Kate Chrisholm. Okay, and quite a few others. I just don't feel like listing them.