Link clicking is easy mode surfing. Level up by using search engines. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigraph_(literature) is the next harder mode link to follow, but every noun phrase, and sometimes also other textual constituents, or even images, provides a potential link to traverse.
Those are direct associations. We can also generate new search terms from old. After we know at least two distinct topics, we can search for instances of what they have in common. After determining how they differ, we can see what we get if we apply that difference to yet other ideas, etc.
Thanks for recommendations!