Literature Map: best book recommendation tool for readers

BY LIBBY JORDAN, EXAMINER.COM

This is one for the books! A website that makes book recommendations based on a reader's favorite authors. A project by Marek Gibney, The Literature Map is part of gnooks which is part of gnod.

Gnod is an experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. It's a self-adapting system that "talks" to everyone who comes along. Its intention is to learn about the world and "understand" its visitors. Gnod is then able to share all its "wisdom" with you in an intuitive way. They call it "a search engine for things you don't know about."

But Gnod doesn't just do books [although it could and I'd be happy forever]. It also examines music [gnoosic] and movies [gnovies] and has an international social networking component [flork]. And while the site has been in existence for a bit, I somehow managed to miss it. A shout out to my pal Caitlin for showing me the way!

When using the Literature Map, you simply type in the name of an author you love to read. The site will then immediately generate a "map" for you of like authors. The closer the "new" author's name is positioned on the map to the author you submitted... the closer the comparison, and the more likely you'll enjoy the read.

Aside from its obvious practical applications, The Literature Map is technologically brilliant. Simply put: pure genius.