Harry Potter and the list of wizard summer reads

Don't know where to turn now that you've finished J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ? Why not dip into the works of fellow fantasy writers Eoin Colfer, William Nicholson or Philip Pullman?

Loughborough University is helping to solve the dilemma of summer holiday reading with the latest edition of its fiction guide Who Else Writes Like...? .

In a survey for this year's World Book Day, more than a quarter of adult readers said they chose their most recent book because they had enjoyed books by the same author.

Who Else Writes Like...? aims to expand the number of writers people read. It lists almost 2,000 authors, each linked to up to 12 others who write in a similar way. Crime writer Colin Dexter, creator of Inspector Morse, has the most links, 12, from Veronica Stallwood, whose amateur detective Kate Ivory is based, like Morse, in Oxford, to Henning Mankell who writes about Swedish police inspector Kurt Wallander.

Novelist J.B. Priestley has six links, from Forsyte Saga author John Galsworthy to modern-day chronicler Tim Pears. Christopher Priest, hailed as a contemporary novelist and a science-fiction writer, also has six links, from Connie Willis to J.G. Ballard.

The guide also lists authors by genre - from Aga saga, historical and glitz and glamour to lad lit, horror and war.

The guide, edited by librarians Roy and Jeanne Huse, is published by LISU, which was set up almost 20 years ago as the Library and Information Statistics Unit, now a national research and consultancy centre.

The listings are based on the most borrowed authors in public libraries.

Who Else Writes Like...? £19.99 available from LISU, Loughborough University, Leics LE11 3TU. Tel: 01509 635680, e-mail: lisu@lboro.ac.uk .