“I do unashamedly want to write page-turners,” Jon Ronson told The New Yorker in an interview. “I can never understand why most nonfiction books have such limited creative ambitions.” Ronson, who is “not a thrill-seeker,” then recounts fearing for his life while being pursued by members of a secretive political gathering—a chase that found its way into Them: Adventures with Extremists, his 2001 breakthrough book. Thrills have a way of finding Ronson, either through active pursuit or some subtler means of revelation. The Men Who Stare At Goats begins with a US Army general who attempts to walk through walls, repeatedly smacking into them. In the opening of The Psychopath Test, a neurologist hands Ronson a baffling package, copies of which have been anonymously mailed to academics throughout the world. The pages turn themselves.

Ronson’s latest, The Castle, earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which praised the book as “a blockbuster portrait of men gone mad” and Ronson’s style as “intuitive but rigorous.” His podcast, Things Fell Apart, was recently renewed for a third season, in which Ronson will shift focus from American culture wars to individual battles against institutions. He once told The Guardian, “I get called faux-naïf all the time. But I honestly think I am just genuinely naive.” It’s an observation that reminds me of Joan Didion’s own famous self-assessment: that she was “so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive . . . that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests.” Ronson is warmer than that, but his access is no less astonishing. Time and again, someone allows him to get very close—closer, perhaps, than they might be aware of. Each of Ronson’s books is a testament to his depth of inquiry, his proximity to the surprising, and his conviction that a good narrative should be propulsive.

—Brendan Fitzgerald

Where did you grow up?

Cardiff, Wales. In a suburb called Lisvane.

What places feel like home?

London, for sure. As a child, when we’d visit my grandparents, I’d sneak away and jump on a bus and just get lost in the City. Even when it wasn’t home, it felt like home. Eventually I lived there for decades, loving especially Soho and Islington. I also love our tiny town in the Hudson Valley. We’ve lived here since 2019.

Other than family members, who or what has shaped you the most?

As a teenager, watching Nick Broomfield documentaries and reading the great nonfiction adventurers from the ’60s and ’70s like Hunter S. Thompson and PJ O’Rourke and the writers featured in Tom Wolfe’s The New Journalism. And when I started in journalism, the editors who first gave me a break: Ian Parker, Chris Heath, Deborah Orr, Ian Katz.

What is your favorite time of day?

Early morning. I make a coffee and for the first few hours my brain is at its best and I can write a lot.

What are you really good at?

Narrative nonfiction. If I go off on some journey, I know exactly how to make it work. It’s the only thing I’m good at.

What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?

Recently the BBC gave me a subscription to Descript, a text-based audio editing program. It’s a dream gift for a detail-oriented storyteller. I can finally do the audio editing myself. I sit there for hours.

Describe your favorite meal.

I guess some kind of salad with lots of fruit and vegetables and a good dressing. You can’t beat Greek dressing.

Sound or silence? (And if sound, what sound?)

Silence! I can’t believe how great the silence is here in the Hudson Valley. There’s something very comforting about knowing it won’t end. They’ll never turn this country lane into a big road.

Where do you do your best thinking?

When I’m out on a story, in some strange place, gathering material. I just instinctively know what’ll work, what the best moments are. Fiction people can do that in their imaginations. I can’t. But when I’m out on a story, I just know.

What journey—physical, creative, intellectual, or otherwise—has meant the most to you?

The journey of leaving Cardiff and moving to London when I was 18. I felt like finally my life could begin.

Where do you like to read?

I listen to audiobooks when I’m out walking.

What’s the last rabbit hole you disappeared into?

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). I went to the cage match on the White House South Lawn for GQ, because it was theme-adjacent to my new book The Castle. So I watched all manner of fighter interviews and UFC super-fan videos for that.

Name three publications you enjoy reading these days.

The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New York Times.

What’s one longread that you can’t stop thinking about?

“Andrew Tate’s Empire Of Abuse” was the last one I listened to from beginning to end.

What was the last book you read?

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson. I listen to it over and over to get to sleep. So I still don’t know how he dies.

What piece of nonfiction are you most proud of writing?

Every book I’ve written has chapters I’m equally proud of: sneaking into Bohemian Grove with Alex Jones and getting chased by the Bilderberg Group in Them, the goat staring in The Men Who Stare At Goats, pretty much all of The Psychopath Test, much of Lost at Sea, Justine Sacco in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. The Castle feels really good. I felt very confident writing it, mixing up tones and styles in a way I don’t think I could have managed before.

What’s your most reliable way to get creatively unstuck?

Just wandering around Reddit can be good. The whole world is somewhere on Reddit. And if you don’t find your next story, it might still unlock some part of your brain.

Who’s a writer you turn to when you need some inspiration?

Kurt Vonnegut, for his brevity and his clashes between comedy and horror.

What words do you overuse?

It used to be “There was a silence” but I’ve cured myself of that, thank God.

What’s your favorite guilty pleasure?

I don’t know if this counts, but every book I read for pleasure is a celebrity memoir, mostly musicians and actors. Cher. Anthony Hopkins. Bruce Springsteen. I LOVED the English actor Kathy Burke’s one, A Mind Of My Own. Right now it’s Johnny Marr.

What superpower would you like to have? 

I think I’d like to be able to shoot fire out of my hands. No. Teleportation through space and time.

What animal or nonhuman being do you most identify with?

I really identified with my dog, Floppy—how he wanted to be around people but didn’t want to interact with them.

If you have a free solitary hour in your day, what do you typically do?

Run or walk.

What five items would you place in a time capsule?

Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. The Pitt. Succession. All of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, especially Doechii, Sierra Ferrell, and Chappell Roan. Bruce Springsteen’s 1979 No Nukes concert video. Huh, it’s almost all music. I guess that’s the stuff we should remember. People being their best.

What does your writing space look like?

Jon Ronson’s nonfiction books include So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Lost at Sea, and The Men Who Stare At Goats. They have all been international and/or New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into more than 30 languages. His latest book, The Castle, is now available.

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