Comments on Mike Laursen: Half A Book Review: Noble House

Ya know, that's a good point. There's no reason t...

2008-09-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Ya know, that's a good point. There's no reason to keep reading a book you're not enjoying. There's too many other books that resonate more with you.

I still have this whole guilt/commitment thing tha...

2008-09-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

I still have this whole guilt/commitment thing that I must finish reading any book that I started.

The good part about that is that sometimes a difficult piece of art will start out slow, but get better as you commit time to it. Steinbeck's "East of Eden" was like that -- like the first 500 pages were a bit tedious, but the rest of the book was so amazing that it's now one of my favorite books. I get frustrated when I recommend, say, some brilliant but flawed piece of music to a friend, and they don't make the effort to see past the flaws.

Having said all that, sometimes I just plain don't want to finish some book I have started. As part of my program of fighting my natural tendency to do everything the hard way, I've given myself permission to do that.

I liked Noble House and a few of Clavell's other b...

2008-09-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

I liked Noble House and a few of Clavell's other books, although Shogun was the best.

I think it's unfair when you hate a book because you expected it to be a different book. Someone I knew hated The DaVinci Code because he thought it would be more like Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Sometimes it's better to have low or no expectations.