Ranking the ranks

I was about to give my rating to a book I'd just finished to read - "The world is flat" by Thomas L. Friedman - when I looked at its rating at Amazon. It was still relatively high (about 4,3 stars) and the readers have been giving diametrically opposite opinions. It wasn't a surprise for me. Actually the reason I started to read this book was the high attention the book attracted in various sections and in the blogosphere. The book got so many "must read" feedbacks I decided to give it a try.

I didn't like the book. Here I don't want to spend your time explaining why - you can find many reviews at Amazon and  in the net. What I want to talk about here is why my expectations haven't been justified? I saw the book was recommended by many people, it definitely was a bestseller on the bookshelves, and it got a high rank at Amazon. I think the point here is the "reference frame". Who were all those people who liked it and who didn't? Impersonal recommendations don't tell much. They easily confuse. They're like bonds of an unknown government. Unless you know the referee any its reference is just air-backed. And the opposite is true to a certain extent. A good referee (in fact any good brand) can almost enforce you to buy bad goods or to read a bad book. Such an example in my case is my Apple Shuffle, which I bought looking not at its functionality but at its coolness.

I think it's crucial to adjust your expectations before you make a decision to the "reference frame" your referee is. Do you know him? Have you tried his recommendations already? Do you think he's going the same way as you are now? Do you think he's passed the same milestone as you just have? I'm surprised every time when I read a negative recommendation to an amazing book and the reason is simply the reader expected something completely other than the book was about.  She could expect a practical to-do list from a book debating different approaches and systems. Or he could hope to meet practical patterns and read about possible pitfalls in concrete projects in a book barely teaching advanced technics. In every book's review you'll meet a few frustrated readers. Sometimes authors are poor in giving their books right names and it causes readers' confusions. But sometimes the book is absolutely OK and frustrations are caused by wrong expectations.

So set up expectations properly and build you set of "trusted authorities".

Here is my non technical book mine I've been digging:
The 30 Book MBA in Entrepreneurship