Jon Ronson
Writer and documentary film maker grew up in Cardiff and began his journalistic career as an award-winning columnist for Time Out. He has also written the popular "Human Zoo" and "Out of the Ordinary" columns for The Guardian, where he contributes features.
He produced the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 documentary Hotel Auschwitz and currently writes and presents the Sony nominated Radio 4 series, Jon Ronson On.... For Channel 4, Jon has made the acclaimed five part series the Secret Rulers of the World, the multi award-winning Tottenham Ayatollah, New Klan, New York to California (A Great British Odyssey), Dr Paisley, I Presume, the four-part series Critical Condition, and the late-night chat show For The Love Of... For ´óÏó´«Ã½2 he made the six part series The Ronson Mission. In the US, he is a contributor to National Public Radio's All Things Considered and This American Life. He is currently working on more books and documentaries.
His first book, Them: Adventures With Extremists, was an international bestseller. Them was longlisted for The Guardian's First Book Award, until it was disqualified for not being, strictly speaking, his first book. He has just published Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness.
Jon’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, 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 hut in Kidderminster, he demonstrates repeatedly how we all succumb to deep irrational beliefs that grow to inform our everyday existence.
