The map proposes to show other authors whom readers of Charlotte Bronte (the writer I searched) might possibly like. The closer the names, the higher the possibility. It's really fun to enter a name, watch the word cloud form, and then disagree with the results. (Like, what's that C. S. Lewis doing in there?!)
Speaking of work, I somehow stumbled on the literary-map site looking for info on the Dutch author Cees Nooteboom for the Netherlands book. I also came across an interview with him about his collection of essays about Spain and the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (which I've walked): Roads to Compostela: Detours and Riddles in the Lands and History of Spain.
In it he addresses one of the questions I'm always asking--why do writers write?--when he says that he'd been to Santiago several times, but, "because I had not written about it, I still really hadn't been there."
I think this is a key: until I write about it, it hasn't really happened to me.
