As noted in Ross' post "On Reading" he loves to read.
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Below are links to reviews he has posted on Goodreads:
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Below are Tweets by Ross, primarily articles of interest:
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Ross' Recent Reviews
 
I had heard of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet and picked it up at a library book sale a couple of years ago. Given some time on my hands I decided to have at it.
The book is nearly 950 pages, but honestly it read surprisingly fa...
I've had The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi on my to-read list for many years. I generally enjoy books that have a historical or religious bent to them. I finally checked this one out at the library and read it.
All-in-all, the book is not...
While long at 566 pages, it was a fast read with very short chapters and Allan Folsom kept a good pace going throughout Day of Confession.
Kicking off with the assignation of a Cardinal in the Pope's inner circle, within the Vatican in ...
This was the first book by Lindsey Davis that I had read (tried to read). I picked this one over her Falco series, because I wanted to see if I'd like it before jumping into multi-volumes.
I don't often not finish books, but I couldn't ...
The Crusader is Michael Alexander Eisner's first work of fiction. It is indicated as historical-fiction, set in the mid to late 1200s and ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to the Holy Land and back.
This book was marketed as an, "actio...
Overall, I enjoyed this book, a quick read, with intriguing characters and a zig-zag plot.
Set primarily in London in 1860, characters who make appearances are a who's who of the day: Queen Victoria, Prince Consort Albert, Charles Darwi...
Arkady Renko is back. The Siberian Dilemma is the 9th book in the series and it doesn't disappoint.
In anticipation of getting this book for Christmas, I decided to re-read the entire series so the background would be fresh in my mind. ...
I decided this summer to read both Shoeless Joe and The Natural, after having watched the latter movie one night. I hadn't read either, but grew up on baseball and had seen the movies many times.
I was disappointed that my favorite play...
I thought at first I was going to enjoy this book.
A tale about a twin brother and sister, father who is a con-man of sorts spending large amounts of time in jail, and a long lost Shakespeare work that is in possession of the father and...
Razor Girl was exactly what I'd expect from Hiassen. Over the top characters doing over the top things in Southern Florida.
Hiassen sets up seemingly disparate story lines then pulls things together. After all it is a small world.
Thes...
I was fortunate to be able to see the exhibit at the Morgan Library in NYC and I purchased this book after attending it.
The large format of the book itself allowed for a wonderful blend of text and images. The organization was very goo...
This is for those who want to dig deeper into Tolkien's work, not for those who enjoy reading the Hobbit, but are good with what is there.
The Hobbit is much shorter than LoTR and Silmarillion and as a result I liked the way the History...
I'm not sure how to rate this book.
I really wanted to like this, because Mean Joe was the greatest Steeler ever, but I felt like this was written by him receiving a list of questions, answering them, and having the co-writer turn them ...
As a lifelong Steeler's fan, I expected to enjoy reading this book, but it exceeded my expectations.
The book provided much insight to the coach, husband, father, and uncle. It clearly depicted the dichotomy between football and non-foo...
I've read a lot of thriller-suspense books with the historical bent from the likes of Brown, Berry, Khoury and company, so I picked this up for a holiday read.
I wasn't familiar with this author or the series. I was disappointed in a fe...
I've read this book multiple times between my early teen years and into adulthood.
The Fellowship begins with the four Hobbit friends, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin, who leave the Shire and find adventure.
For those wanting a Dan Brown-...
I was born and raised Catholic (though today I go to my wife's Lutheran Church to worship) and only 7 years old when Pope John Paul II was elected as Pope. So most of my very formative years and young adult hood were during his time as P...
I've read and re-read Tolkien's 'primary' works, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Silmarillion over the past thirty years. About five years or so ago, I began to delve into the History of Middle Earth series, short stories, and transla...
If you can imagine an: art & history fact book, travelogue, race to save/destroy the world story, shell game, and vinyl record that occasionally skips mashed together in a book, you have Inferno.
I've read each of the Robert Langdon boo...
I've read and enjoyed each of Matthew Pearl's books. They are in a sense similar in style, but diverse in the story being told. They are not DaVinci Code style page turners. They often build up and crescendo at the right time.
The Last ...
I've read Tolkien's standards and they have always appealed to me and in some ways it was more a feeling than an actual understanding of why. I moved on to HoME and many of Tolkien's translations, such as Beowulf, Sigurd, and the Fall of...
This is another work that is purely for fans of Tolkien who want to better understand the underpinning's of his works and potentially the inspirations.
I am an admitted Tolkien geek, but don't consider myself a scholar. I was very inter...
Tatiana is the 8th installment of the Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith. The series started with 1981's Gorky Park.
I've always greatly enjoyed these books, because of the character of Renko. He is a police detective in Moscow, w...
There is a very limited market for this book, those who enjoy/study Norse Mythology or are very hard core fans of JRR Tolkien would be the primary candidates.
I'm a Tolkien fan and knew nothing about Norse Mythology, so from that perspe...
Having read this book after Rousey got knocked out, I'm viewing from a slightly different perspective than many other reviewers.
To be clear, I'm a huge fan of Ronda. I also grew up wrestling, my father was a longtime coach and my broth...
This book is a part of the Images of America Series and focused on the C.F. Martin & Co. located in my hometown of Nazareth, PA.
The author is Dick Boak, who I got to know during the time that I helped run a local art and music center i...
This book was published in 2001 as a part of what appears to be a World Wrestling Federation promotional effort featuring bio's of some of its stars and major events.
I read it this week, because I live in Pennsylvania, my father was fr...
I'm a huge Tolkien fan, so last year I got his translation of Beowulf, but I'm not in a good position to rate this book. For whatever reason, while I consider myself a reasonably avid reader, I hadn't previously read Beowulf. As a result...
Dostoyevsky is not for everyone. If you like a fast, exciting, page-turner, this is not for you.
The demons in this book are the ideas entering Russia in the late 1800's from Europe and are expressed by a range of characters living in a...
After reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings more than once in junior and senior high, I decided to tackle the Silmarillion.
In the Silmarillion is Of Turin Turambar. I loved it. I read it over and over. It was 28 pages.
In the Unfin...
I picked up a hardcover copy of Gorky Park at our local library fundraiser (a paperbag of books for $5). I hadn't read this book previously since maybe the late 1980s to early 1990s. I grew up in the cold war and have read the entire ser...
As many others have noted, this a book for fans of JRR Tolkien, okay, more than fans.
As the title notes, it is a book of excerpts (for the most part) of letters that Tolkien wrote throughout his life time edited by Humphrey Carpenter w...
The Fall of Arthur is a reasonably brief book at 220 pages.
This book could be approached in one of two ways.
The first is to read the unfinished, but original poem by Tolkien depicting "The Fall of Arthur", along with the "Notes on th...
I am an admitted and unabashed Tolkien fan.
I've mostly focused on his "major" works, but over the holiday break I got Letters, Bilbo's Last Song, and Tales from the Perilous Realm.
Tales from the Perilous Realm is a compilation of fiv...
For background, I grew up wrestling in eastern PA, my father is a Hall of Fame high school coach, and my brother coaches today. I was in HS in the 1980s and remember the Schultzs' winning gold in 1984. My father received an autographed c...
I knew nothing about Joanne Harris or the book Gentlemen and Players as I picked this up during a library book sale fundraiser and tossed it into my $5 take as many books as you can fit in a paperbag option. My daughter also had a bag so...
I had read volumes 1 & 2 of the History of Middle Earth many years ago. I've more recently read volumes 6 through 12, leaving 3, 4, and 5 left for me in the series of edited works by Christopher Tolkien of his father's work.
I really en...
I've read a lot of books that focus on uncovering hidden mysteries by way of a quest.
I'm typically pretty open to how far the author is willing to go provided it stays within a realm of being believable. So what is that? I don't think ...
Volume 12 of 12 in the History of Middle Earth, The Peoples of Middle-Earth, compiled by Christopher Tolkien, is in many ways my favorite of the ones I've read (I've read the first two volumes and last six).
This volume primarily covers...
I had read this book around ten years ago and decided to re-read it.
I'm not a theology student, but for whatever reason I find the period of time of Jesus' death and the two centuries immediately following very intriguing.
This intere...
I had wanted to read History of Middle Earth (HoME), and re-reading the published version of each became a pre-requisite to refresh my memory. So I read The Silmarillion and then decided before HoME, I'd read The Unfinished Tales. I last...
For starters, this book is for fans of Tolkien who want to better understand the back-story of the events in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It is not for a casual reader.
I hadn't read The Silmarillion in probably fifteen to twenty y...
I finished reading The Hobbit on a flight back from Germany and had this book on my Kindle app from the Gutenberg Project.
I read nearly all of it on the return flight and found it to be scary good.
This edition was based on the 1896 e...
This is a quest story with the unlikeliest of heroes, a Hobbit, named Bilbo. He is recommended to serve the role of burglar to a band of dwarves set on recovering their ancestors' gold from the dragon Smaug, by the wizard, Gandalf.
I'v...
How to review this one?
I've read a lot of military history and non-fiction about terrorism and insurgency.
I enjoy reading suspense and literary works.
I own a GSD and our last dog was a mix lab/GSD.
What struck me most about this b...
I've greatly enjoyed all of the books by Carl Hiaasen that I've read, and Basket Case wasn't bad, but it wasn't great.
I thought the story lacked the way over the top characters and situations of most of his works.
Despite that, it was...
It took me a long time to get through a book that ought to have been read in a week. Part my fault, part the author's.
I won Berry's first book through a contest and got to read it pre-publish and have been compelled to read all his wor...
As noted by others, this series is for Tolkien nerds only with the exception of academics or those wanting to understand Tolkien's writing process.
I find each book contains gems of insight. I love learning when Tolkien knew what was go...
Most people have noted this is only for die-hard fans of Tolkien, and it is. I'd also argue it is for those who seriously want to explore Tolkien's writing process (I'd imagine these are die-hard fans, but could be academics as well).
T...
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