Jon Ronson Popular Books

Jon Ronson Biography & Facts

Jon Ronson (born 10 May 1967) is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker. He is known for works such as Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004), and The Psychopath Test (2011). He has been described as a gonzo journalist, becoming a faux-naïf character in his stories. He produces informal but sceptical investigations of controversial fringe politics and science. He has published nine books and his work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, City Life and Time Out. He has made several BBC Television documentary films and two documentary series for Channel 4. Early life Ronson was born in Cardiff on 10 May 1967. He attended Cardiff High School and later worked for CBC Radio in Cardiff, before moving to London to study for a media degree at the Polytechnic of Central London. Career Writing Ronson's first book, Clubbed Class (1994), is a travelogue in which he bluffs his way into a jet set lifestyle, in search of the world's finest holiday.His second book, Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001), chronicles his experiences with people labelled as extremists. Subjects featured in the book include David Icke, Randy Weaver, Omar Bakri Muhammad, Ian Paisley, Alex Jones, and Thomas Robb. Ronson also follows independent investigators of secretive groups such as the Bilderberg Group. The narrative tells of Ronson's attempts to infiltrate the "shadowy cabal" fabled, by these conspiracy theorists, to rule the world. Publishers Weekly noted: "It is how he reveals the all-too-real machinations of Western society's radical fringe and its various minions that makes this enjoyable work rather remarkable." The book was described by Louis Theroux as a "funny and compulsively readable picaresque adventure through a paranoid shadow world." Variety magazine announced in September 2005 that Them had been purchased by Universal Pictures for a feature film.Ronson contributed the memoir "A Fantastic Life" to the Picador anthology Truth or Dare, in 2004.Ronson's third book, The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004), deals with the secret New Age unit within the United States Army called the First Earth Battalion. Ronson investigates people such as Major General Albert Stubblebine III, former head of intelligence, who believed that people can walk through walls with the right mental preparation, and that goats can be killed simply by staring at them. Much was based on the ideas of Lt. Col. Jim Channon, ret., who wrote the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual in 1979, inspired by the emerging Human Potential Movement of California. The book suggests that these New Age military ideas mutated over the decades to influence interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. An eponymous film of the book was released in 2009, in which Ronson's investigations were fictionalised and structured around a journey to Iraq. Ronson is played by the actor Ewan McGregor in the film.Ronson's fourth book, Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness (2006; Picador and Guardian Books), is a collection of his Guardian articles, mostly those concerning his domestic life. A companion volume was What I Do: More True Tales of Everyday Craziness (2007).The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry (2011) is Ronson's fifth book. In it, he explores the nature of psychopathic behaviour, learning how to apply the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, and investigating its reliability. He interviews people in facilities for the criminally insane as well as potential psychopaths in corporate boardrooms. The book's findings have been rejected by The Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy and by Robert D. Hare, creator of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. Hare described the book as "frivolous, shallow, and professionally disconcerting".Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries (2012), Ronson's sixth book, is a collection of previously published articles by him.Ronson's book So You've Been Publicly Shamed (2015) concerns the effects of public humiliation in the internet age. Radio Ronson's main radio work is the production and presentation of a BBC Radio 4 programme, Jon Ronson on... The programme has been nominated for a Sony award four times. In August 2008, Radio 4 aired "Robbie Williams and Jon Ronson Journey to the Other Side", a documentary by Jon Ronson about pop star Williams' fascination with UFOs and the paranormal.In the early 1990s, Ronson was offered the position of sidekick on Terry Christian's Show on Manchester radio station KFM. Ronson also co-presented a KFM show with Craig Cash, who went on to write and perform in The Royle Family and Early Doors.Ronson contributes to Public Radio International in the United States, particularly the program This American Life. As of 2021, he has contributed segments to 13 episodes including "Them" (#201), "Naming Names" (#211), "Family Physics" (#214), "Habeas Schmabeas" (#310), "It's Never Over" (#314), "The Spokesman" (#338), "Pro Se" (#385), "First Contact" (#411), "The Psychopath Test" (#436), "Secret Identity" (#506), "Tarred and Feathered" (#522), "To Be Real" (#620), "Beware the Jabberwock" (#670).Ronson hosted and wrote the podcast The Butterfly Effect, which was released in November 2017 by Audible and was made subsequently available on other podcasting platforms. The show focuses on internet pornography, and Fabian Thylmann and PornHub's effect on the industry. Ronson subsequently also hosted and wrote the podcast The Last Days of August, released in January 2019. It focuses on the 2017 death of pornographic actress August Ames. Ronson returned to the BBC in 2021 with Things Fell Apart: a podcast on the Culture Wars for BBC Sounds in a similar format to his previous efforts for Amazon. Music In the late 1980s, Ronson replaced Mark Radcliffe as the keyboard player for the Frank Sidebottom band for a number of performances.Ronson was the manager of the Manchester indie band Man From Delmonte. Television Ronson presented the late nineties talk show For the Love of..., in which each week he would interview a gathering of guests and experts on different phenomena and conspiracy theories. Ronson has also appeared as a guest on various shows, including Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled. Films Ronson sold the film rights to The Men Who Stare at Goats, and subsequently a film of the same name was released in 2009 as a comedy war film directed by Grant Heslov and written by Peter Straughan. According to Ronson's DVD-commentary, the journalist-character Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) did experience some elements of Ronson's self-recounted story from the book. However, unlike Ronson, Wilton was an American from Ann Arbor. Also, unlike Ronson, Wilton went to Iraq.In the process of visiting the set during the shoot, Ronson began a collaborative writing project with Straughan. This was the screenplay for Frank, a 2014 black comedy inspired in part by Ronson's time in Frank Sidebottom's band.With Bong Joon-ho, Ronson wrote.... Discover the Jon Ronson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jon Ronson books.

Best Seller Jon Ronson Books of 2024

  • The Men Who Stare at Goats synopsis, comments

    The Men Who Stare at Goats

    Jon Ronson

    Now a major film, starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges, this New York Times bestseller is a disturbing and often hilarious look at the U.S. military's long flir...

  • An Apology for Idlers synopsis, comments

    An Apology for Idlers

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    An irresistible invitation to reject the work ethic and enjoy life's simple pleasures (such as laughing, drinking and lying in the open air), Robert Louis Stevenson's witty and sem...

  • Trust No One synopsis, comments

    Trust No One

    Michael Grothaus

    Deepfake technology can create video evidence of just about anything: Hollywood superstar Margot Robbie in an orgy.Chinese president Xi Jinping declaring nuclear war.Basketball leg...

  • On Solitude synopsis, comments

    On Solitude

    Michel de Montaigne & M. A. Screech

    Blending intellectual speculation with anecdote and personal reflection, the Renaissance thinker and writer Montaigne pioneered the modern essay. This selection contains his idiosy...

  • Mind on Fire synopsis, comments

    Mind on Fire

    Arnold Thomas Fanning

    Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2019 '[A] painfully intense, courageous and gripping account of [Fanning's] journey to the underworld of madness and back. This is a brave a...

  • The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion synopsis, comments

    The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion

    Arthur Schopenhauer

    A fascinating examination of ethics, religion and psychology, this selection of Schopenhauer's works contains scathing attack on the nature and logic of religion, and an essay on e...

  • Snakes in Suits, Revised Edition synopsis, comments

    Snakes in Suits, Revised Edition

    Dr. Paul Babiak & Dr. Robert D. Hare

    Revised and updated with the latest scientific research and updated case studies, the business classic that offers a revealing look at psychopaths in the workplacehow to spot their...

  • Be Bulletproof synopsis, comments

    Be Bulletproof

    James Brooke & Simon Brooke

    This is the essential guide for anyone looking to get ahead in the warzone that is often the workplace.However good you are, there are always times you come under fire at work. But...

  • My Mother, the Psychopath synopsis, comments

    My Mother, the Psychopath

    Olivia Rayne

    What do you do when the person you’re meant to trust the most in the world is the one trying to destroy you? ‘When people met her they thought how lovely she was, this attractive w...

  • Cult Trip synopsis, comments

    Cult Trip

    Anke Richter

    A leading journalist's intense, riveting and personal investigation into the worlds and minds of cultsAt a new age festival in Byron Bay, journalist Anke Richter is finding her spi...

  • Selected Poems synopsis, comments

    Selected Poems

    Fernando Pessoa

    The writing of Fernando Pessoa reveals a mind shaken by intense inner suffering. In these poems he adopted four separate personae: Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis an...

  • A Brief Guide to Smart Thinking synopsis, comments

    A Brief Guide to Smart Thinking

    James M. Russell

    Each book is summarised to convey a brief idea of what each one has to offer the interested reader, while a 'Speed Read' for each book delivers a quick sense of what each book is l...

  • The Psychopath Test synopsis, comments

    The Psychopath Test

    Jon Ronson

    In this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them. The Psychopath Test is a fa...

  • An Abbreviated Life synopsis, comments

    An Abbreviated Life

    Ariel Leve

    “Sometimes, a child is born to a parent who can’t be a parent, and, like a seedling in the shade, has to grow toward a distant sun. Ariel Leve’s spare and powerful memoir will remi...

  • Them synopsis, comments

    Them

    Jon Ronson

    A wide variety of extremist groups Islamic fundamentalists, neoNazis share the oddly similar belief that a tiny shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, journali...

  • Snakes in Suits synopsis, comments

    Snakes in Suits

    Dr. Paul Babiak & Dr. Robert D. Hare

    Revised and updated with the latest scientific research and updated case studies, the business classic that offers a revealing look at psychopaths in the workplacehow to spot their...

  • A Joosr Guide to... The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson synopsis, comments

    A Joosr Guide to... The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

    Joosr

    In today's fastpaced world, it's tough to find the time to read. But with Joosr guides, you can get the key insights from bestselling nonfiction titles in less than 20 minutes. Whe...

  • Heine synopsis, comments

    Heine

    Heinrich Heine & Peter Branscombe

    'One of the first men of this century' is how Heine described himself when he claimed to have been born in the early hours of 1800. It was typical of Heine to create this humorous ...

  • Lost at Sea synopsis, comments

    Lost at Sea

    Jon Ronson

    The New York Times–bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, Jon Ronson writes about the dark, uncanny sides of humanity with clarity and humor. Lost at Sea reveals how deep our c...

  • The Memory Illusion synopsis, comments

    The Memory Illusion

    Dr Julia Shaw

    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Truly fascinating.' Steve Wright, BBC Radio 2 Have you ever forgotten the name of someone you’ve met dozens of times? Or discovered that your memory of...

  • Love synopsis, comments

    Love

    Stendhal, Gilbert Sale & Suzanne Sale

    In 1818, when he was in his midthirties, Stendhal met and fell passionately in love with the beautiful Mathilde Dembowski. She, however, was quick to make it clear that she did not...

  • Tell Me No Lies synopsis, comments

    Tell Me No Lies

    John Pilger

    Tell Me No Lies is a celebration of the very best investigative journalism, and includes writing by some of the greatest practitioners of the craft: Seymour Hersh on the My Lai mas...

  • The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Selected Critical Prose synopsis, comments

    The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Selected Critical Prose

    Oscar Wilde

    Selection includes The Portrait of Mr W.H., Wilde's defence of Dorian Gray, reviews, and the writings from 'Intentions' (1891): 'The Decay of Lying, 'Pen, Pencil, Poison', and 'The...

  • Daft Wee Stories synopsis, comments

    Daft Wee Stories

    Limmy

    DAFT WEE STORIES is Limmy’s first book.It is a collection of stories.There are short stories. There are longer stories. There are stupid stories. There are thoughtful stories. Ther...

  • Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt synopsis, comments

    Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt

    Rosalie David

    The ancient Egyptians believed that the Nile their life source was a divine gift. Religion and magic permeated their civilization, and this book provides a unique insight into th...

  • There Are No Accidents synopsis, comments

    There Are No Accidents

    Jessie Singer

    A journalist recounts the surprising history of accidents and reveals how they’ve come to define all that’s wrong with America.We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accid...

  • Exit Stage Left synopsis, comments

    Exit Stage Left

    Nick Duerden

    A SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN & TELEGRAPH MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE MONTH GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY FINANCIAL TIMES 'BEST SUMMER BOOKS 2022' PICK 'Incredibl...

  • Man, Interrupted synopsis, comments

    Man, Interrupted

    James Bailey

    James Bailey's form of obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) was as bizarre as it was unbearable. He was obsessed by a fear of drugs and their effects, believing himself to be in cons...

  • Office Politics synopsis, comments

    Office Politics

    Oliver James

    A fascinating exposé of office culture, in the style of the bestselling Affluenza, from popular psychologist Oliver JamesThe modern working world is a dangerous place, where gamep...

  • The Self Delusion synopsis, comments

    The Self Delusion

    Tom Oliver

    'A thoughtprovoking and worthwhile read' THE TIMES'A timely, challenging book' GUARDIAN'[A] rich, intriguing book' NATUREWE ARE MUCH MORE CONNECTED TO NATURE AND EACH OTHER THAN WE...

  • Distant Voices synopsis, comments

    Distant Voices

    John Pilger

    Throughout his distinguished career as a journalist and filmmaker, John Pilger has looked behind the 'official' versions of events to report the real stories of our time.The centre...