Books, Readers and Beyond: #52 What to Read (Comparing Resources)

READ-ALIKES
Novelist
I chose Alexander McCall Smith as my author, since I dearly love the "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series.
Novelist suggested five authors for me:
1)Agatha Christie (an author I know but do not like very much)
This seems to stress the mystery aspect of the book.
2) R.K. Narayan (an Indian author with whom I am not familiar)
This selection reflects McCall Smith's desire to explain other cultures through the lives of the main characters. I think I might enjoy reading the suggested title "The Guide."
3) James Thurber is an author I like. One of my favorite pieces is his fable called "The Unicorn in the Garden." Thurber was probably selected because of the humorous nature of his work.

4) Clyde Edgerton is another one of my favorites authors. Novelist describes his books as being about communities of normal people with normal problems treated with humor and compassion. I thought this was a great suggestion.
5) Jon Hassler is the fifth author. I am not familiar with his work, but Novelist describes his writing as darker and more serious than McCall Smith's. It doesn't sound appealing to me.

Fiction_L Booklists
I tried searching by McCall Smith, and had no luck. I then tried searching by setting, since all occur in Botswana, Africa. The closest match I found was "Mysteries Set In Africa." However, his books were not on the list.
I found this site awkward to use because of its organization.

What Should I Read Next?
This site also seemed more limited than Novelist. People who have read "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" listed other books they liked. From the results, ten titles by other authors were listed. None overlapped with Novelist. One was a mystery I did like ("Guardian Angel", by Sara Paretsky, that I liked because I know the Chicago setting), and one was a novel that I very much disliked because of its disfunctional characters ("Accidental Tourist" by Anne Tyler). McCall Smith has much more normal characters in his work. None of the other titles gave enough information for me to learn whether I might want to read them or not.