Recently I read this sentence in a Bill James book and thought it was an excellent metaphor:

"The difficulty with this approach is that it in essence requires you step on every land mine in the process of mapping the minefield."

I've never heard that saying before but I thought it was very clever, and using Google it doesn't seem to be a particularly common saying, though probably not original to James.

My favorite simile in general is "like rearranging deskchairs on the Titanic," but that's in common use, not from a book. I plan on using that Bill James one a lot now. Any of you have similes/metaphors you use that you picked up from books?

EDIT: Deckchairs, not deskchairs. It was a typo, I swear.