Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I’ve got a few reviews I need to write, but Jon Ronson ruined my plans

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

The Debutante: From High Society to White Supremacy by Jon Ronson

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I’m sitting on….three other reviews at the moment. But over the course of three or four days, I listened to these audio books, and everything else has been put on hold. I came to these books through a bit of a circuitous route. Jon Ronson was interviewed on the podcast Knowledge Fight, a podcast that critically explores the world of Alex Jones. Ronson has long written about both white supremacy and conspiracy theories, and Alex Jones is firmly planted at the nexus of those two […]

Some

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Rizzio by Denise Mina

This way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski

Being There by Jerzy Kosinski

Hits and Misses by Simon Rich

Proto Zoa by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Last Days of August by Jon Ronson

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: Or, How Capitalism Works - and How It Fails by Yanis Varoufakis

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CBR14Bingo – Shadow – In the novel, even though it’s ostensibly about the “Buffalo Bill” killings, Hannibal Lecter is always there and always present in mind. – Silence of the Lambs – 3/5 Stars This is a book that for some godforsaken reason my seventh grade English teacher not only let me read for a class assignment but also let me make a stick-figure puppet theater for key scenes. The early 1990s were the Wild Wild West truly. It’s an interesting book that is mostly […]

Them

Them by Jon Ronson

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This is Jon Ronson’s first book, appearing in 2001 after a few years of writing and research (and hijinks) gathering materials. The book involves Ronson spending time with various extremists of multiple bents, but especially Islamic extremists and Right-Wing extremists, with some ??? extremists thrown in. On this last point for example, Jon spends a long part of the book with an extremist who really seems to be using anti-Semitic codewords about new world orders and lizard people, but also really might possibly be talking […]

“At the end of our conversation she (Martha Stout) turned to address you, the reader. She said if you’re beginning to feel worried that you may be a psychopath, if you recognize some of those traits in yourself, if you’re feeling a creeping anxiety about it, that means you are not one.”

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

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To be honest with you, this review will most likely not be worth a hill of beans. This is a saying my mother uses and I’m just thinking right now that I have no idea what it actually means, or why she says it. Beans have a lot of nutritional value and can be quite tasty. Or does it mean that the beans are worth a lot and whatever you’re comparing this fictional hill to is worth less? This also makes no sense because why […]

Jon Ronson Stuff

The Men Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

The Butterfly Effect by Jon Ronson

Frank by Jon Ronson

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson

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The Men Who Stare At Goats – 3/5 Stars I wished I liked this better, and I didn’t dislike it, but it felt more cobbled together and scattershot than I would have hoped for. That’s more or less true of a lot of the Jon Ronson books, where he takes a central thesis and explores different connected ideas, stories, parts, etc to try to tell a more fuller version of things. But because this book begins with a set of events and government program, the […]

“But we know that people are complicated and have a mixture of flaws and talents and sins. So why do we pretend that we don’t?”

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

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This is one of those books that probably everybody should read. It wasn’t the most brilliantly written book I’ve ever read, but that’s okay, that’s not Ronson’s style. He’s very workmanlike in his writing, sort of tongue-in-cheek, and he’s got this great way of using his simple style to deliver these darkly funny deadpan one-liners. But what I really liked about this was the message. The book is short, and sort of rambly, and structured more like a Russian doll than anything. He opens stories […]



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