Jon Ronson

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Things Fell Apart is the live version of Jon’s hit BBC Radio 4 podcast. Jon will tell some stories from the show, and some brand new stories too. There'll be audio and rare video clips and surprise guests and a Q&A. 

These past few years Jon has watched friends get caught up in the online culture wars to such a degree that they've lost everything – their careers, their wellbeing. And by culture wars, Jon means the battle for dominance between conflicting values. Jon wanted to understand how things fell apart, and so he went back in time to find the origin stories, the pebbles thrown in the pond creating the ripples. He had no idea of how unexpected, how spellbinding, those tales would be.

Jon Ronson's nonfiction books include So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Lost at Sea and The Men Who Stare at Goats. They have all been international and/or New York Times bestsellers.
His most recent published work is the acclaimed BBC podcast Things Fell Apart (2021) - named by the Observer as the number one audio show of 2021. Before that came two Audible Original audio series: The Butterfly Effect (2017) and The Last Days of August (2019). Both went straight to number one in the US and UK audiobook charts, and were named by multiple critics as two of the best podcasts of recent years.
His books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and his two TED talks have been watched more than 30 million times. One of them – Strange Answers to The Psychopath Test – is among the 25 most watched TED talks of all time.
The Psychopath Test spent more than a year on the UK bestseller list. Jon’s live show based on the book – Psychopath Night – has sold-out theatres and concert halls across the UK and Ireland.
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is frequently cited as having kickstarted the conversation about the perils of social media shaming. The book is used by hundreds of educators across America to teach compassion and curiosity, and to illuminate the damage that results from a reactionary shaming culture. It also inspired an episode of Black Mirror (‘Hated in the Nation’).
The Men Who Stare at Goats was adapted into a film starring George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey.
Jon’s original screenplays include the acclaimed Netflix original Okja (Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal), which he co-wrote with Bong-Joon Ho, and Frank (Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal), which he co-wrote with Peter Straughan. Okja was selected to compete for the Palm D’Or at the 2017 Cannes film festival. For Frank, Jon and Peter won the 2014 best screenplay award at the British Independent Film Awards. Jon also wrote the short e-book Frank: The True Story That Inspired the Movie.
In the US Jon is a contributor to This American Life, the New York Times magazine and GQ magazine, and has appeared many times as a guest on shows such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Joe Rogan, Conan, Craig Ferguson, and Inside Amy Schumer.
In the UK Jon has written regularly for The Guardian, as a columnist and feature writer. His many UK documentaries include Stanley Kubrick's Boxes, The Secret Rulers of the World, and seven seasons of the multi award-winning BBC Radio 4 programme Jon Ronson On…
He lives in New York.