Gweek 074: Lost at Sea with Jon Ronson

David and I spoke with Jon Ronson about his new book, Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries. Jon is the author of several first-person narrative books that David and I love: Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, and The Men Who Stare at Goats, (which was made into a movie by George Clooney). If you are unfamiliar with Jon's work I recommend that you get your hands on every book he's written.

Lost at Sea collects 22 Guardian articles Jon's written over the years, and they are fascinating portraits of people and groups a few standard deviations away from the middle of the normalcy bell curve.

Subjects include: Insane Clown Posse and their announcement that they are born-again Christians who have encoded secret messages in their songs for the last decade, the billionaire transgender woman who invented satellite radio and her attempt to create a lifelike robot of her partner, the culture of Indigo Children, a British pop star's fascination with UFOs and aliens abductions, the contents of Stanley Kubrik's archival boxes, the tiny town of North Pole, Alaska, where Christmas is celebrated 365 days a year and where a group of high school students were caught trying to duplicate the Columbine high school massacre, a profile of Neuro-linguistic Programming co-creator Richard Bandler, a Children of God offshoot that donates kidneys as part of their religious practice, a profile of psychic Sylvia Browne, and many more stories. I was enthralled by every one.

David and I spoke to Jon last year on Gweek. Listen to that episode here.

• [Buddy Bradley]

  The last Gweek interview with Jon Ronson was superb, so I’m really looking forward to listening to this one. Thanks Mark!

• [Incipient Madness]

   I also recommend everything Jon Ronson has done. Do not let that terrible The Men who Stare at Goats movie fool you. The book is mind blowing and terrifying. Them is where I’d recommend starting.

  Great interview BTW.

• [B E Pratt]

  Definitely read  EVERYTHING by this guy. I think my favorite is where he describes what is probably where the bizarre idea that LSD could make you think you can fly comes from. It is chilling and [almost natch] involves the CIA. Also, his adventures with professional paranoid Alex Jones are a hoot. It takes a bit to get used to the fact that he is not writing some strange version of fiction, but an even stranger version of fact.