http://www.literature-map.com/

There are now a great many "what to read next" sites, but this is one that maps out similar authors for you so you can select an author whose works will be similar to authors you already like.

For example, I started with Paul Auster - and the resulting author map/cloud showed me a pretty high percentage of authors I already enjoy - Nabokov, Murakami, Joyce, Kundera, Eco, Atwood, Chabon, DeLillo, McEwan, Marquez, Hesse, Saramago, Borges... not bad for a click.

I recommend checking it out if you want to find some new authors. It certainly won't hurt.

...magical realism aims to seize the paradox of the union of opposites. For instance, it challenges polar opposites like life and death and the pre-colonial past versus the post-industrial present. Magical realism is characterized by two conflicting perspectives, one based on a rational view of reality and the other on the acceptance of the supernatural as prosaic reality. Magical realism differs from pure fantasy primarily because it is set in a normal, modern world with authentic descriptions of humans and society. According to Angel Flores, magical realism involves the fusion of the real and the fantastic, or as he claims, "an amalgamation of realism and fantasy".

There is debate in the literary community as to whether magical realism is reserved for Latin American literature or other cultures which have a strong background of magical/tribal legend and magic. However, over the course of my research into the "genre" or qualities of magical realism, I've found a solid amount of scholars who maintain that magical realism isn't limited to any specific culture - and that writers from other cultures (like Salman Rushdie or Angela Carter or Milan Kundera) are equally serious and valid authors of magical realism. Another description of magical realism states,

Magic Realist novelists embroider fantastic elements of fable, folklore, and myth -- symbolic indictments of the crazy-quilt insanity of contemporary politics and normalizing ideologies -- then stitch them seamlessly into a conventional narrative. This conscious, playful interweaving of the surreal and the magical within the traditional adult novel confronts the repression of thought-policed cultures and the oppression of modern aesthetics, both of which deny the power of the imaginative world.

Thus, here are some I've read and enjoyed. As I read more, I'll add to the list... and perhaps pop up some reviews as well.

• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Wise Children by Angela Carter
• Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter
• Blindness by Jose Saramago
• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
• We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Immortality by Milan Kundera
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
• The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
• Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
• The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
• The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

• The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon
• Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression by Nell Casey
• Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness by David A. Karp
• An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
• Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron

- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen ♥
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ♥♥
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
- Nana by Emile Zola ♥
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ♥♥
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert ♥
- Fingersmith by Sarah Waters ♥
- Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ♥♥
- Ahab's Wife, or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund ♥♥
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrellby Susanna Clarke
- Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier ♥
- The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins ♥♥

♥ = indicates a slight sentimentality warning.
♥♥ = indicates a strong sentimentality warning. Yeah. I know.

That's the first list. More to come as I am inspired!

Without further ado, welcome to the new researchgirl book blog. You'll notice that I'm "repurposing" some content from the old book page but it will now be categorized and organized and, most importantly, frequently updated. It's an easier platform.

If you have any comments or suggestions on how to make this page better, please don't hesitate to contact me via email: eva (at) researchgirl.com.