Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries

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Or at least, that's what I'm getting from passages where Ronson notes that "there is no statute of limitations for underage sex--or for sexual assaults" but then candidly tells us: "In one e-mail, [King] asked me if I would consider it fair if, say, Mick Jagger was arrested today for having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl in 1970.

I think this is a really well done collection of different journalist ventures however I found it really hard to get through the chapters as I simply didn't care about the subject matter. Portions of this book have appeared previously, in slightly different form, in Out of the Ordinary, What I Do, the Guardian and GQ. Here he celebrates the centenary month of Ian Flemming's birth - by travelling in James Bond's footsteps, from London to Geneva, driving a vintage Aston Martin. Topics range from "Indigo children" to a foiled school shooting plot in North Pole, Alaska (the town where it's always Christmas) to a portrait of obsessive-compulsive genius in the form of Ronson's explorations through the thousands of boxes of stuff spread out all over Stanley Kubrick's estate. I'm attracted to stories about sane men in an insane world, which covers just about everything Jon Ronson's ever written - probably why I like him so much!The would-be killers, like all students in North Pole high school, answered letters from children all over the world addressed to “Santa, North Pole” under elfish pseudonyms. I saw the film version of The Men Who Stared at Goats, though it was awful, but the writing in Lost at Sea is so good, I might change my mind about reading Goats. A contributor to The Guardian, Ronson is the author of the columns "Human Zoo" and "Out of the Ordinary".

From Noel Edmonds and the devotees of Deal or No Deal to Robby Williams and the true believers of alien abduction. His most recent documentaries are Reverend Death (Channel 4), Citizen Kubrick (More4) and Robbie Williams and Jon Ronson Journey to the Other Side (Radio 4).

Ronson has a way of humanizing the worst or most ridiculous among us, and this is a beautiful thing. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying this, just often left feeling cut short at the end of each and every chapter. Not all of the essays were winners - a longer piece on early attempts at artificial intelligence dragged a bit, and I didn't share Ronson's fascination with Stanley Kubrick's obsessively collected archives. His work includes the international bestsellers Them: Adventures With Extremists and The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was adapted into a major motion picture starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Ronson quotes the defense copiously in large blocks of both direct quotes and paraphrase, yet he can barely make room for any quotes from the prosecution.

They include a couple of murder/suicide cases, the economic class issues in America, and the sad story of Richard Cullen who committed suicide after becoming hopelessly in debt. As clubland decadence turned to darkness, its self-publicised king, Michael Alig, committed one of the most notorious crimes of New York’s recent history – the violent murder of Angel Melendez. I've much preferred his other books, but this is perfectly readable if you're a Ronson fan and want more.I loved reading about real life "superhero" Phoenix Jones as he patrols the streets of Chicago, trying to make drunk drivers eat tacos before getting behind the wheel, or discovering that the rap duo Insane Clown Posse have been covert Christians their entire careers, believing they were making converts of their listeners subliminally for 20 years. Lost at Sea" is a fascinating collection of oddball human stories that offers hours of riveting reading pleasure and is a must-read for all readers looking for extraordinary and entertaining non-fiction stories written in an accessible and compelling style.

Always intrigued by our ability to believe the unbelievable, Jon meets the man preparing to welcome the aliens to earth, the woman trying to build a fully-conscious robotic replica of the love of her life and the Deal or No Deal contestants with a fool proof system to beat the Banker. What is possibly most classy about the court scenes is that Ronson manages to take a statement about King's crimes being the "the tip of the iceberg" and twist it into an implied dick joke ("I looked over at the arresting officers. One of the stories involves a man who killed himself because he got in way over his head with credit card debt; another story involves an inventor who murdered his whole family after his fortune evaporated. Hence I'm 30% through this and thinking, "Huh, weird, he's mixing real people into this really, really bizarre science fiction story. Maybe it's a combination of his unusual inflection and non-judgmental honesty, or just the fact that he's there and asking the questions: he comes across as an alien who has just landed on the planet and is trying to figure out Earthlings.And he frequently in this chapter uses this opinion to strongly imply that the charges against King are motivated entirely by homophobia (rather than put forth the possibility that perhaps crimes against underage girls are under-prosecuted because of sexism). However, as each chapter is about a different person/theme and they are unconnected, you don't get a particularly in-depth look into the topics covered. Some of the letters written by small children and given to them to answer are heart breaking like “please make mummy and daddy stop fighting” and “I would like to wear more clothes this year”. and one of the victims (who was, to his everlasting credit, more polite about the question that I would have been). He has spent his life investigating crazy events, following fascinating people and unearthing unusual stories.