Jon Ronson Books

A collection of mini-adventure stories from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Psychopath Test. Now including two new stories.

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

In this eye-opening portrait of extremist groups--75 percent of which are located in this country--Jon Ronson takes readers inside the hearts and minds of people often summarily dismissed as kooks and crazies.

From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame. 'It's about the terror, isn't it?' 'The terror of what?' I said. 'The terror of bei

In the late 1980s Jon Ronson was the keyboard player in the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band. Frank wore a big fake head. Nobody outside his inner circle knew his true identity. This became the subject of feverish speculation during his zenith years. Together, they rode relatively high. Then it all went wrong. Twenty-five years later and Jon has co-written a movie, Frank , inspired by his time in this great and bizarre band. Frank is set for release in 2014, starring Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Domhnall Gleeson and directed by Lenny Abrahamson. Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie is a memoir of funny, sad times and a tribute to outsider artists too wonderfully strange to ever make it in the mainstream. It tells the true story behind the fictionalized movie.

Jon Ronson’s subjects have included people who believe that goats can be killed by the power of a really hard stare, and people who believe that the world is ruled by twelve-foot lizard-men. In Out of the Ordinary, a collection of his journalism from the Guardian, he turns his attention to irrational beliefs much closer to home, investigating the ways in which we sometimes manage to convince ourselves that all manner of lunacy makes perfect sense – mainstream, domestic, ordinary insanity. Whether he finds himself promising his son that he will be at his side for ever, dressed in a Santa costume, or trying to understand why hundreds of apparently normal people would suddenly start speaking in tongues in a Scout hut in Kidderminster, he demonstrates repeatedly how we all succumb to deeply irrational beliefs that grow to inform our everyday existence. Out of the Ordinary is Jon Ronson at his inimitable best: hilarious, thought-provoking and with an unerring eye for human frailty – not least his own. Praise for The Men Who Stare at Goats: ‘Not only a narcotic road trip through the wackier reaches of Bush’s war effort, but also an unmissable account of some of the insanity that has lately been done in our names’ Observer Praise for Them: Adventures with Extremists: ‘A funny and compulsively readable picaresque adventure through a paranoid shadow world’ Louis Theroux, Guardian

Why are Iraqi prisoners of war forced to listen to Barney the Purple Dinosaur's theme tune repeatedly, at top volume? Why have a hundred de-bleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces command centre at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? Has the US Army really enlisted the help of Uri Geller?In The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson searches for answers to these and many other questions, revealing some of the extraordinary beliefs at the core of the War on Terror.So unbelievable that it has to be true – this is the real-life account that inspired the film.

Uri Geller ist für die CIA als parapsychologischer Spion in Mexiko tätig. In einem verlassenen Bunker versuchen Soldaten, Ziegen per Telekinese totzustarren. Und ein General ist davon überzeugt, früher oder später durch Wände gehen zu können. Unglaublich, aber wahr. Jon Ronson entlarvt humorvoll die Absurdität geheimer US-Militärexperimente.

Britský novinár Jon Ronson sa dobrovoľne vydáva na potulky s predstaviteľmi rôznych krajných politických názorov. Spoznáva pri tom nepraktických islamských fundamentalistov, prívržencov Ku-Klux-Klanu, ktorí sa s veľkým sebazaprením snažia nenadávať černochom, bojovníkov proti intergalaktickým jašterom, ktorí možno sú a možno nie sú antisemiti, presbyteriánskych kazateľov, ktorí pápeža vyhlasujú za Antikrista, i moderátorov rozhlasových „informačných vojen“, ktorí v dovolenkových výstrelkoch boháčov vidia zlovestné satanské rituály. Navzdory rozdielnym názorom, lepšie povedané nepriateľstvám na život a na smrť, napodiv všetci veria v to isté: že sa totiž niekde skrýva tajné miesto, z ktorého hŕstka vyvolených ovláda celý svet. V záujme objektivity sa teda Ronson pokúsi týchto tajných vládcov sveta vypátrať – a v istom zmysle sa mu to dokonca podarí… Autorove zážitky s extrémistami sú komické, bizarné, fascinujúce, ale zároveň vo svojej podstate desivé. Ukazujú totiž, ako ľahko možno na zrniečka pravdy nabaliť absurdnú vrstvu nezmyslov, ktoré však vedia ľuďom poskytnúť pocit, že pochopili utajené zákonitosti fungovania sveta. Vyžadujú za to len jediné: aby sa im verilo. Jon Ronson je novinár a dokumentarista. Medzi jeho najznámejšie knihy patria The Psychopath Test či Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness. Je autorom knižnej predlohy k fi lmu Muži, čo čumia na kozy.