Today a friend of mine shared a websites that will tell your authors related to ones you like. It is called the literary web. You put in an authors name and it constructs a web of similar authors. Now I didn’t always like reading. That’s somewhat of an untruth. I always enjoyed reading but there was a blip.
I remember my mother reading to me when I was early in my life and I remember reading books like The Hardy Boys and Red Wall and I remember the Scholastic book fairs and getting lots of books there. Then elementary school became middle school and reading just wasn’t cool anymore.
I had books at home because I wanted them and maybe I read them but I didn’t advertise it and I didn’t want to be seen as uncool, not like not reading was helping that. Then I got in trouble at school. I ended up suspended and with the suspension from school came the loss of privileges at home. Without TV and video games the only available form of entertainment was reading.
That is when I read Stephen King’s Eye of the Dragon. That prompted me to read most of Stephen King’s other works which led me to Clive Barker and several other writers. That is when I really started reading.
When I got to the literary web website I started entering the names of authors I like now that I thought would lead me to new authors but instead the web that was constructed was made up of other authors I currently read. It turned out my book collection isn’t as eclectic as I thought. Apparently reading NK Jemisin and Michael Connelly isn’t that unusual.
That is when I decided to put in Stephen Kings name and it all suddenly made sense. My reading taste through the years was nothing more than a product of the first author I truly loved. The closest name to Stephen King on the web that was constructed was fantasy author Terry Pratchett and in the opposite direction but almost equally close was Michael Connelly. That is where Stephen King lies. Between Pratchett and Connelly. Between fantasy and thriller.
The web of my reading future might stretch wide in all directions but when I venture back towards the center it all makes sudden, perfect sense. My book collection is not nearly as eclectic as I thought. It is all part of a perfectly logical web.
David Huzzard Writes 