Jack Ross

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Jack Ross

Goodreads Author


Born
in Auckland, New Zealand
Website

Genre

Member Since
December 2013


Jack Ross retired from his job as Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University in 2022. He has published six books of poems, three novellas, three novels - Nights with Giordano Bruno (2000), The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis (2006) and EMO (2008) - and three collections of short fiction, most recently Haunts (2024). Ross has also edited a number of anthologies and literary journals, including Landfall and Poetry New Zealand.

Michael Steven has described him as a "maverick translator", while Michael Morrissey had this to say about him: "Tired of airport books? Bored by Tom Clancy and Dan Brown? Wearied by puerile web sites? Seeking a challenge? Try a 'novel' by Dr Jack Ross" -- Investigate.

His novel-as-twin-novellas, The Annotated
...more

Spooky TV Shows II: How do you prove if ghosts are real?


Danny Robins: Uncanny (2023-25)

A few years ago I wrote a kind of round-up of supernatural TV shows past and present, with particular emphasis on the epically silly 28 Days Haunted. It seems that time has come round again. To quote from the film of Shirley Jackson's classic Haunting of Hill House :
No one will hear you, no one will come, in the dark, in the night.
Each of the shows I'll be Read more of this blog post »
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Published on October 14, 2025 12:35
Average rating: 4.2 · 91 ratings · 4 reviews · 72 distinct works
Poetry New Zealand Yearbook...

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4.10 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2019
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Poetry New Zealand Yearbook...

3.88 avg rating — 8 ratings2 editions
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Recviem

4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings
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Contemporary New Zealand Po...

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2007
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Classic New Zealand Poets i...

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3.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2006
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Poetry New Zealand Yearbook...

4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings
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New New Zealand Poets in Pe...

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2008
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Ghost Stories

4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings2 editions
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101 Things Home Owners Shou...

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings
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To Terezín (Social and Cult...

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2007
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Jack’s Recent Updates

Jack Ross wrote a new blog post

Spooky TV Shows II: How do you prove if ghosts are real?



Danny Robins: Uncanny (2023-25)A few years ago I wrote a kind of round-up of supernatural TV shows past and present, with particular emphasis on the Read more of this blog post »
Jack Ross liked a quote
The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen        King
“Did they all live happily ever after?

They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing that they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God had meant them to stand. All I'm trying to say is that they lived as well as they could, each and every one of them; some lived longer than others, but all lived well, and bravely, and I love them all, and am not ashamed of my love.”
...more
Stephen King
Jack Ross and 4 other people liked Douglas Milewski's review of Malafrena:
Malafrena by Ursula K. Le Guin
"Malefrena (1979) by Ursula LeGuin took me almost 40 years to complete. I began reading it as a school kid when I saw it in the fantasy section, because LeGuin was a fantasy author. The book did not belong there. I read it expecting fantasy to happen " Read more of this review »
Jack Ross has read
The Annotated Arabian Nights by Yasmine Seale
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Jack Ross rated a book it was amazing
Haunts by Jack Ross
Haunts
by Jack Ross (Goodreads Author)
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Jack Ross and 75 other people liked Julie 's review of Marlene Dietrich: The Life:
Marlene Dietrich by Maria Riva
"Marlene Dietrich: A Life by Maria Riva is a 2017 Pegasus Books publication.

Recently I read ‘Marlene’ by C.W. Gortner, which falls into the ‘biographical novel’ category. It was well done, for the most part, but I couldn't help but wonder, what parts" Read more of this review »
Jack Ross liked a quote
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is—just because it is a miracle—as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be. Why is it more than merely probable that all men must die, that lead cannot when not supported remain suspended in the air, that fire consumes wood and is extinguished by water, unless it is that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and for things to go differently there would have to be a violation of those laws, or in other words a miracle? Nothing is counted as a
miracle if it ever happens in the common course of nature. When a man who seems to be in good health suddenly dies, this isn't a miracle; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet often been observed
to happen. But a dead man’s coming to life would be a miracle, because that has never been observed in any age or country. So
...more
David Hume
Jack Ross rated a book it was amazing
Mike Johnson Selected Poems by Mike  Johnson
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Jack Ross rated a book it was amazing
Orange Roughy by Various
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Jack Ross rated a book it was amazing
Myth of the 21st Century by Tina   Shaw
Myth of the 21st Century
by Tina Shaw (Goodreads Author)
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More of Jack's books…
Quotes by Jack Ross  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“The book, and the CDs, are taonga. The result of a mission by poets Jan Kemp and Jack Ross, they reproduce the poetic voices of our past. …
But what is the bigger story of this collection? It is a treasure of voice and poem. I am hoping it is the beginning of a longer series. Every school should have one. There is much to ponder on, to celebrate here. And people searching for poems for significant occasions could do well to buy this book. It is of our people.
– Peter Wells, New Zealand Herald”
Jack Ross, Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance

“Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”
Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“The book, and the CDs, are taonga. The result of a mission by poets Jan Kemp and Jack Ross, they reproduce the poetic voices of our past. …
But what is the bigger story of this collection? It is a treasure of voice and poem. I am hoping it is the beginning of a longer series. Every school should have one. There is much to ponder on, to celebrate here. And people searching for poems for significant occasions could do well to buy this book. It is of our people.
– Peter Wells, New Zealand Herald”
Jack Ross, Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance

“fast-thinkers ... think in cliches, in the "received ideas" that Flaubert talks about--banal, conventional, common ideas that are received generally. By the time they reach you, these ideas have already been received by everybody else, so reception is never a problem.”
Pierre Bourdieu, On Television

“My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. These memories, which are my life—for we possess nothing certainly except the past—were always with me. Like the pigeons of St. Mark’s, they were everywhere, under my feet, singly, in pairs, in little honey-voiced congregations, nodding, strutting, winking, rolling the tender feathers of their necks, perching sometimes, if I stood still, on my shoulder or pecking a broken biscuit from between my lips; until, suddenly, the noon gun boomed and in a moment, with a flutter and sweep of wings, the pavement was bare and the whole sky above dark with a tumult of fowl. Thus it was that morning.”
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is—just because it is a miracle—as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be. Why is it more than merely probable that all men must die, that lead cannot when not supported remain suspended in the air, that fire consumes wood and is extinguished by water, unless it is that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and for things to go differently there would have to be a violation of those laws, or in other words a miracle? Nothing is counted as a
miracle if it ever happens in the common course of nature. When a man who seems to be in good health suddenly dies, this isn't a miracle; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet often been observed
to happen. But a dead man’s coming to life would be a miracle, because that has never been observed in any age or country. So there must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, because otherwise the event wouldn't count as a ‘miracle’. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, we have here a direct and full proof against the existence of any miracle, just because it’s a miracle; and
such a proof can’t be destroyed or the miracle made credible except by an opposite proof that is even stronger.

This clearly leads us to a general maxim that deserves of
our attention:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact that it tries to establish. And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of
arguments, and the stronger one only gives us an assurance suitable to the force that remains to it after the force needed to cancel the other has been
subtracted.”
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

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