Description

Broadcast journalist Jon Ronsons 1st book Them: Adventures With Extremists is a mostly hilarious, occasionally chastening romp thru the shadowy world of paranoid conspiracists. It proves a neat conceit. Ronson, a consummate faux-naïf, inevitably treads similar ground to Louis Theroux, tho perhaps with a lighter, more disingenuous patter, which sustains him in encounters t Broadcast journalist Jon Ronsons 1st book Them: Adventures With Extremists is a mostly hilarious, occasionally chastening romp thru the shadowy world of paranoid conspiracists. It proves a neat conceit. Ronson, a consummate faux-naïf, inevitably treads similar ground to Louis Theroux, tho perhaps with a lighter, more disingenuous patter, which sustains him in encounters that veer from the extraordinary to the mundane at dizzying pace, blurtinh the space between. He meets Omar, the infuriatingly likeable Islamic fundamentalist organising a jihad from a N. London semi, despite a more real struggle with the reprographic world, & PR-conscious KKK leader, Thom Robb, who unaccountably has Jewish mannerisms. Others who allow Ronson to share a window in the life, & possibly into their soul, include David Icke, still believing that the worlds ruling elite are descended from reptiles (no, really), Dr Ian Paisley & Tony Kaye, a Hollywood director, determined to sabotage his own movie, American History X , rather than see it publicly released without his approval. These are easy pickings, but Ronson picks them with unobtrusive & gentle irony. His main mission, tho, is to track down the Bilderberg Group, who reputedly comprise the worlds leading figures, & who, its believed by the likes of Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein & Soho Bomber David Copeland, want to enforce global capitalism. However, the alleged sighting of Peter Mandelson, attending a Bilderberg gathering, surely portends more for the British reader. Ronsons escapades--I am a humorous journalist out of my depth, he informs the British Embassy in Portugal when his car is tailed--uncovers more truth than one would expect, tho none greater than the depressing but crushingly realistic notion that even the most powerful public figures are, at play, little more than preppies or undergraduates, who enjoy worshipping owl effigies, wearing false breasts & urinating in public. Luckily, Ronson tires of the corkscrewing paranoia & subterfuge before the reader, leaving a rich impression of a world affirmingly varied & absurd, if endearingly familiar. But, having attended a Bilderberg meeting, perhaps he would, wouldnt he?--David Vincent (edited) Semi-Detached Ayatollah Running thru cornfields Secret rulers of the world Bilderberg sets a trap! Middlemen in New York There are lizards & there are lizards Klansman who wont use the n-word Hollywood Living a diamond life in a rocky world Dr. Paisley, I presume Ceausescus shoes Way things are done Clearing in the forest Acknowledgments

Broadcast journalist Jon Ronsons 1st book Them: Adventures With Extremists is a mostly hilarious, occasionally chastening romp thru the shadowy world of paranoid conspiracists. It proves a neat conceit. Ronson, a consummate faux-naïf, inevitably treads similar ground to Louis Theroux, tho perhaps with a lighter, more disingenuous patter, which sustains him in encounters t Broadcast journalist Jon Ronsons 1st book Them: Adventures With Extremists is a mostly hilarious, occasionally chastening romp thru the shadowy world of paranoid conspiracists. It proves a neat conceit. Ronson, a consummate faux-naïf, inevitably treads similar ground to Louis Theroux, tho perhaps with a lighter, more...  Read More