Out of the ordinary : true tales of everyday craziness

A collection of Jon's "Guardian" features, reworked and with new material, with a common theme: the ways in which people get themselves into wholly irrational bubbles, within which all manner of lunacy makes perfect sense. In Jon's previous two books, "Them" and "The Men Who Stare at Goats", the nuttiness took place a long way from everyday life - on US military bases, or at Jihad training camps, or during conclaves of powerful men gathered for an annual ritual in a redwood forest. In "Out of the Ordinary", the nuttiness is much closer to home - it's mainstream, domestic, ordinary insanity. The book consists of three parts. In part one, Jon will rework four pieces. The first is about his parents commissioning a local artist to paint a Ronson family portrait. The second is about Jon taking his son, Joel, to Lapland, to meet Santa. The third is about Jon doing the Alpha course and nearly finding God. The fourth piece will be a major reworking of his "Out of the Ordinary" weekly column in the form of a diary. Part two consists of two long pieces about courtroom dramas: the Who Wants to be a Millionaire coughing major trial, and the trial of Jonathan King on charges of sexually molesting under-age boys. And part three will be about nuttiness in the world of celebrity. Out of the Ordinary will be Jon Ronson at his inimitable best: hilarious, thought-provoking and with an unerring eye for human frailty. Out of the Ordinary is Jon Ronson at his inimitable hilarious, thought-provoking and with an unerring eye for human frailty not least his own. 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. Journalist Jon Ronson investigates all manner of lunacy, which somehow make perfect sense.