

Writer, Broadcaster, Journalist, Documentary Filmmaker. Books include The Psychopath Test and The Men Who Stare At Goats
Encouraging us to think of the impact of our actions, especially how we interact online. Compelling and clever.
Biography
Jon Ronson is an author, journalist and documentary filmmaker. All his non-fiction books have been international bestsellers, including ‘The Psychopath Test‘, which has spent two years on the bestseller list in the UK and ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in the US, and ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats‘, which was adapted into a film starring George Clooney. More recently he’s co-written the screenplays for Frank, starring Michael Fassbender, and Okja, which showed at Cannes Film Festival 2017 and is on Netflix.
His many documentaries include Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes, The Secret Rulers of the World, and seven series of the BBC Radio 4 programme Jon Ronson On… He writes regularly for The Guardian and US GQ. In the US he’s also regular contributor to the PRI show This American Life, has spoken at the TED conference in Long Beach, and has appeared twice on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Jon aims to speak truth to power, even when those in power might not be what you expect. In ‘So you’ve been publicly shamed’ Jon tackles the twitter-sphere and the abuse of the democratisation of justice in engenders.
Once, Twitter gave a voice to the voiceless, but now the best way to avoid being social media shamed, and all the real world implications that go along with it, is to stay quiet.
His latest book, ‘The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the ‘Alt-Right”, takes a more traditional approach to power, looking at President Trump’s rise to office.
Jon examines the theory, shared by scores of eminent psychologists, that you are four times more likely to have a psychopath at the top of the tree than you are at the bottom. Is psychopathy such a powerful brain anomaly that it has remoulded society all wrong, or are we are living in a world that’s too ready to label people with mental health disorders?
Spend an hour in the company of writer and documentary film maker Jon Ronson, as he lets you into his wonderful world of weird happenings and strange characters – all based on his books and films.
Topics
The Psychopath Test
Weird happenings and strange characters
Public Shaming: how one tweet can ruin your life
Videos
Resources
Books





Testimonials
“John’s a fantastically charismatic speaker who spoke frankly about the highs and lows of business ownership: his keynote speech was extremely positively received” Sonia Hickey, Head of Commercial Programming, Guardian Live
“John was absolutely superb. He is a serial entrepreneur. He learned from success and more importantly he learned from failure and he delivers these lesson in an engaging and inspiring talk.” Alan Stevens, Past President of Global Speakers Federation