I just got done reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg and I started reading A Painted House by John Grisham. I am really enjoying these books. My question is can you give me some ideas for some books and authors who write stories like this? I usually read sci-fi books and this is a new road for me.

Hi Wendell. Scroll down to the Contemporary Fiction forum and I'm sure you will find a lot of interesting suggestions.

This "Map of Literature" will give you other author's names. Type in either Spragg or Grisham's name and it creates a cloud of other authors. Then hop back over here to search for those names!

Hey Thanks! That Map of Literature site is great! I knew someone one would know or have a new idea.

The Map site is amazing! Thanks so much for sharing it, DW!!!!!

Someone else in the forums had posted it around here, but I can't remember what discussion thread it was. But thanks nonetheless!

Here's another gem buried somewhere else in the PBS forums: A flowchart inspired by NPR's Top 100 Sci-fi & Fantasy books.  http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/flowchart_for_navigating_nprs_top_100_sff_books/  (The newest feature is an interactive series of questions, but I prefer the print-out version so I can look at the flowchart as a whole.)