Or how people get themselves into wholly irrational bubbles, in which all manner of lunacy makes perfect sense.
Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness
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Review
'A comical and enjoyable read. This is a pleasure to indulge in at
any spare moment'
-- Easy Living
'Frank, searching and highly amusing...succeeds in eviscerating
the fragile illusions at the core of everyday life.' -- Western Mail
Ronson plays up to his charming buffoonery...But he is an acute
social commentator. He is compelling.
-- Times Literary Supplement
any spare moment'
-- Easy Living
'Frank, searching and highly amusing...succeeds in eviscerating
the fragile illusions at the core of everyday life.' -- Western Mail
Ronson plays up to his charming buffoonery...But he is an acute
social commentator. He is compelling.
-- Times Literary Supplement
Book Description
Jon Ronson’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 from the Guardian, 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 Scout hut in Kidderminster, he demonstrates repeatedly how we all succumb to deeply irrational beliefs that grow to inform our everyday existence. Out of the Ordinary is Jon Ronson at his inimitable best: hilarious, thought-provoking and with an unerring eye for human frailty – not least his own. Praise for The Men Who Stare at Goats: ‘Not only a narcotic road trip through the wackier reaches of Bush’s war effort, but also an unmissable account of some of the insanity that has lately been done in our names’ Observer Praise for Them: Adventures with Extremists: ‘A funny and compulsively readable picaresque adventure through a paranoid shadow world’ Louis Theroux, Guardian
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By Lark
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
In contrast to some of the topics that Jon Ronson has written about the everyday or ordinary craziness could seem like a really dull subject matter but this book is anything but dull.
Here Ronson presents a two part piece, the first mainly involving his own stories and the second his encounters of everyday craziness involving others, stories from a newspaper column with post-scripts which sometimes turn out as interesting as the stories themselves. Sometimes these are even better than the story themselves, such as the postscript which follows a piece on a religious group called The Jesus Christians which insisted upon followers donating organs.
Ronson explains in the preface that he wanted to write about how people create bubbles of credibility in which they, sometimes they and their cohorts, are convinced they are rational while everyone else is crazy or do and say plainly irrational things as a consequence of "one thought leading to another".
I found the pace and style of writing pretty engaging, as easy to read and as interesting as his other more bizarre topics such as military scams, conspiracy theorists and paranoia in such books as The Men Who Stare at Goats and Them: Adventures with Extremists.
The real talent emerges in both accounts like that in the postscript to his piece on the Jesus Christians where he admits first becoming convinced of his own villainy by a deluge of obsessive e-mails and then uncovers the same sorts of manipulation and mind control adopted by cults operating a private nursery. Here Ronson demonstrates how as a writer he's not really a spectator but a participant in his subject matter and then is taking something fairly routine and mundane, how a private nursery operates, reconsidering and scrutinising it in light of some fresh insights. Its a very nice, short and unassuming work of reflective thoughtful writing. It makes the same point as more dense philosophical and psychological reads like The Heart of Man or The Fear of Freedom (Routledge Classics).
Finally I've got to pay tribute to the structuring of the book, however I'm only repeating what Ronson himself says in the introduction, the book finishes with a look at Stanley Kubrick and the private world created through Kubrick's hoarding tendencies. It's a lighter note to finish on and meant the book had a nice uplifting note to end on.
While there is a contents page there is no index, I dont think the book was intended to be read and referenced so I have a certain sense in which this does not feel like a great oversight or omission.
Here Ronson presents a two part piece, the first mainly involving his own stories and the second his encounters of everyday craziness involving others, stories from a newspaper column with post-scripts which sometimes turn out as interesting as the stories themselves. Sometimes these are even better than the story themselves, such as the postscript which follows a piece on a religious group called The Jesus Christians which insisted upon followers donating organs.
Ronson explains in the preface that he wanted to write about how people create bubbles of credibility in which they, sometimes they and their cohorts, are convinced they are rational while everyone else is crazy or do and say plainly irrational things as a consequence of "one thought leading to another".
I found the pace and style of writing pretty engaging, as easy to read and as interesting as his other more bizarre topics such as military scams, conspiracy theorists and paranoia in such books as The Men Who Stare at Goats and Them: Adventures with Extremists.
The real talent emerges in both accounts like that in the postscript to his piece on the Jesus Christians where he admits first becoming convinced of his own villainy by a deluge of obsessive e-mails and then uncovers the same sorts of manipulation and mind control adopted by cults operating a private nursery. Here Ronson demonstrates how as a writer he's not really a spectator but a participant in his subject matter and then is taking something fairly routine and mundane, how a private nursery operates, reconsidering and scrutinising it in light of some fresh insights. Its a very nice, short and unassuming work of reflective thoughtful writing. It makes the same point as more dense philosophical and psychological reads like The Heart of Man or The Fear of Freedom (Routledge Classics).
Finally I've got to pay tribute to the structuring of the book, however I'm only repeating what Ronson himself says in the introduction, the book finishes with a look at Stanley Kubrick and the private world created through Kubrick's hoarding tendencies. It's a lighter note to finish on and meant the book had a nice uplifting note to end on.
While there is a contents page there is no index, I dont think the book was intended to be read and referenced so I have a certain sense in which this does not feel like a great oversight or omission.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Jon Ronson should write all books - I'd have read everything by now! A brilliant mix of everyday encounters and deeper journalistic pieces. See also What I Do: More True Tales of Everyday Craziness for more of the same.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By GRBD
Format:Paperback
As an investigative journalist, Ronson's compelling forays into the bizarre aspects of modern culture has won him a cult following. This collection of his broadsheet columns focuses on the craziness closer to home, as he explores the irrational beliefs that every seemingly sane person harbours in his or her attempts to make sense of the world. Perhaps the most engaging aspect of his inquisitive focus is that he routinely turns the spotlight on his own perfidious nature, highlighting the likely emotional damage he visits on his son Joel in an attempt to create the most enchanting childhood imaginable. Frank, searching and highly amusing, it might lack the journalistic merit of his pseudo-political investigations, but it succeeds in eviscerating the fragile illusions at the core of everyday life.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Out of the Ordinary
I'm still reading the book and enjoying it. So far so good. Well written by the author and yes
I would recommend this book
I would recommend this book
Published 26 days ago by Maria D. F. Rodrigues
4.0 out of 5 stars
No ordinary writer
I am in a Jon Ronson phase of reading at the moment. I love the way he seeks out and pursues the quirky and the offbeat, observing and commenting on real-life characters through... Read more
Published 2 months ago by David Williams
3.0 out of 5 stars
Uncredtied Prequel
I have been a little spoiled regarding the Ronson catalogue, having introduced myself via "The Psycopath Test" which I found to be wryly humerous,(rather than "funny"),eye opening,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robery Boyd
4.0 out of 5 stars
Random & Readable Revelations
"Out Of The Ordinary", a showcase of some of Jon Ronson's investigative journalism, contains some excellent articles and his thoughts on some of the weirder ways of our world. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Green Man Music
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good in parts
A book of two halves - first part, a collection of short pieces and a 'diary'; the second, four longer features. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Parthurbook
5.0 out of 5 stars
Apparently very funny!
The person I bought this for as a birthday present really enjoyed the stories and some were laugh out load funny, he said. So, good for a laugh!
Published 21 months ago by Mrs. S. C. Williams
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very Ordinary snapshots of a moderate life!
Who the heck dreamt up the title of this boring book? I bought it on the basis of having enjoyed reading 'Them' some years back. Ronson should stick to that form of journalism. Read more
Published on 2 July 2010 by Francis Webster
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ignore This Book.
If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, would they eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare? I don't know. Read more
Published on 7 July 2008 by M. J. Laurent
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Anthology
This book is an anthology of some of Ronson's broadsheet journalism over the last few years. It is, by its nature, episodic, but is also very, very funny and extremely well... Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2007 by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley
5.0 out of 5 stars
Made me laugh out loud!
I found 'Out of the Ordinary' one of the funniest books I have ever read. I would laugh out loud with an instantaneous burst of hilarity at his expressions of the bizarre human... Read more
Published on 14 July 2007 by TiggrToes
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