Jon Ronson

Journalist and writer

Jon Ronson was born and went to school in Cardiff, after which he studied journalism at the Polytechnic of Central London. He started his journalistic career as a columnist for Time Out and now writes regular columns for The Guardian. He has also written three books, been involved with various television programmes for Channel 4, and his BBC Radio 4 show “Jon Ronson On...” was shortlisted for a 2006 Sony Radio Academy Award.

Jon Ronson specialises in satirising the weird and irrational ideas held by people as diverse as Ian Paisley, Omar Bakri Mohammed, David Icke, the American army, and himself. His book Them: Adventures With Extremists was an international bestseller and was described as “a hugely amusing book about the lunatic fringe”. Another of his books, The Men Who Stare at Goats, also made into a film, is a political satire which explores the American military's eccentric and alarming attempts to add new age practices (like trying to walk through walls) to their armoury. His latest book, Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness (Autumn 2006) collects together his Guardian columns on the irrational beliefs of everyday life – “mainstream, domestic, ordinary insanity”.

See also
His official website
An interview with Jon Ronson