Rating: 
Summary: A Great and Entertaining Read
Review: this novel definitely stand out among other novels.the plots and subplots is just facinating and how the author sews it up together into one massive book is just amazing.the characters are very original with human attitude and you can distinct each character as they have their own personality.my favourite has to be ian dunross.his character is what a leader needs become where he is unnerved in pulsating circumstances,full of confidence and can be witty whenever necessary. the only thing that confuses me is the chinese habit of spitting wherever to get rid of the bad joss.do they still do that nowadays,i dont know.but an author of such talent would do his research.so it has to be true. everyone who wishes a superb adventure into james clavells world shall not regret the journey that will be encountered.a great read indeed.
Rating:
Summary: all clavell's works are great, but this one is the jewel
Review: if you've only heard of clavell because of the excellent shogun, then you have so far missed out on his greatest work: noble house. the plot is so rich and there is so much humour also that you will wish the book was even longer than it is. you cannot miss this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Winded
Review: This is Clavell's last book of his epic series. I am glad that I read Tai-Pan (thanks to another customer review's suggestion), so that I was able to follow the characters and historic development of Noble House. Noble House is much better than Tai-Pan and is definitely an easier read. Noble House has a pretty good plot. I found the Russia, world-domination plot a little underdeveloped and could have been wiped out entirely out of the equation, thus, saving a couple hundred pages of this lengthy 1200+ epic novel. The main characters are exciting to follow: Ian Dunross, Casey, Bartlett, Quillan Gornt, 4 Fingers Wu. Some are developed enough to recognize throughout the novel: Peter Marlowe, Brian Kwok, Philip and John Chen, Suslev. And some could have been left out: Haply, Inspector Smyth, Havergill, etc. A pretty decent read, but very, very long. This could have been shortened and still be a powerful novel - even more so. It makes sense to read these in order because of continuing saga's. I took the shortcut and only read Tai-Pan and Noble House and this was enough to follow the storyline.
Rating:
Summary: Too many loose ends...
Review: Clavell's novels have a great way of continuing at the end. Life goes on. But in "Noble House" Clavell simply introduces too many segues. The last 200 pages or so of the book seemed rushed, and the book simply ends with too many loose ends. A little frustrating after 1370 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: At times challenging but rewarding
Review: Set in Hong Kong during the 1960's, the plot of Noble House concerns the business and political dealings of all of the most important and wealthy people on the island. Along with Tai-Pan, I would rate this as the best book of Clavell. Although at times he goes into too much detail on some topics, such as finance, this is generally a thrilling book, with some genuinely exciting plot twists. I would recommend this book to anybody who enjoys long, sweeping epics.
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Summary: James Clavell is THE Tai-Pan of storytelling!!
Review: Noble House is a mammoth of a book. It's not a single story, it is a dozen plots and subplots magically weaved into one colossal tale. As with the other books by Clavell, this beauty is mind-catching, with great, unpredictable, HUMAN characters and, as always, a brilliant ending. This is a book that you'll be sorry to finish -- you'll want to keep on reading it forever. Great epic Asian feel, great detail, great pace, great everything. This book is 100% greatness. Be warned, though, read Tai-Pan first, or things might be a bit complicated for you.
Rating:
Summary: Nobel House
Review: This was a book I just couldn't put down. After reading the previous James Clavell books in the series I just loved this one as well.
Rating:
Summary: Murder, Mayhem, Manipulation: Just another week in Hong Kong
Review: It's 1963. Hong Kong business conglomerate Noble House teeters on its foundations, dangerously close to collapse. With enemies and fair-weather friends on all sides vying for a chunk of the fallout rubble, Ian Dunross Struan, tai-pan of the Noble House, must somehow wheel and deal his way into at least twenty million dollars to pay off his debts and save his inheritance. But the tai-pan's struggle is just the surface layer of story, for in _Noble House_ James Clavelle weaves an incredible amount of subplots and historical tangents into a seamless whole-a massive tome that should give the consistent reader many hours of entertainment. Included in this week and a half of Hong Kong history: cold war espionage, bank failures and hostile takeovers, stock market fluctuations, drug smuggling, kidnapping, murder, high-price concubines and the men that desperately seek to please them, horse racing with enormous sums on the line, and the ever-present threat of a sudden typhoon or earthquake to interrupt everyone's fun and put things in perspective. _Noble House_ is structured in the typical novel format, being a slow, steady rise of tension and the continual addition of complications, always building the conflict and potential consequences, until release: climax and conclusion. Keeping the reader interested in both plot and characters over 350+ thousand words shows great skill on the part of the author. But what impressed me most about _Noble House_ were Clavelle's insights into the human condition: the fallible, fragile nature of both interpersonal and professional relationships; the overpowering lure of greed and lust; the strong contrasts in eastern and western thought processes. Besides the (literally) enormous entertainment found herein, the cultural and socio-political information in itself makes _Noble House_ a worthy read. Interestingly, Claville predicts the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union by detailing the basic flaw in their world policy: spending vast amounts of borrowed capital on military and subversive activities while the infrastructure of the country crumbled away thanks in no small part to poor maintenance and the stifling of innovation. Given that this book was written in 1981, during one of the peaks of the so-called "cold war," Clavelle's hints and insinuations resonate with a twenty-first-century hindsight. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: More than a book, a learning experience
Review: You will never read another book like this. Noble House will teach you culture, history, language...taking you under the very skin of a people. A must read.
Rating:
Summary: The Modern Continuation of Tai Pan
Review: Like all of Clavell's books since 1980, I bought Noble House the moment I knew it was available. Unfortunately, that was during a week of law school finals. Although I finished the thousand pages in a few days, my grades turned out to be a full level below all my other semesters. That's how spellbinding Noble House is. This book is certainly top rate in terms of plot, suspense and characters in its own right, but what bound me to it during all my spare time was the interrelationship with the characters from Clavell's previous Hong Kong novel, Tai Pan and, to a lesser extent, King Rat. The same was true later with Whirlwind and Gai Jin, neither of which gathered a speck of dust in the bookstore before I bought it. Even today, I mourn over the fact that Clavell didn't live long enough to write another 2 or 3 books in his series. I have never read any other author who leaves so many questions unanswered and so many critical issues unresolved, but does so in a way that feeds the curiosity so strongly rather than disappointing. It is a tribute to Clavell's monumental skill as a storyteller that this is a strength of his novels rather than a major irritant to his readers. Very few of those readers stopped at one Clavell novel and, as far as I know, almost everyone who has read one goes on to read all the rest. Unlike so many of today's authors, he writes about heroes who aren't made of cardboard and who hold genuine mystery no matter how closely they are observed.
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