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| Title | : | The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry |
| Author | : | Jon Ronson |
| Rating | : | |
| Genres | : | Nonfiction |
| ISBN | : | 1594485755 |
| Edition Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 275 pages pages |
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry Reviews
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
Jon Ronson goes on a mental illness odyssey in his book, The Psychopath Test, which takes in some extraordinary people and facts, and is, by turns, a funny and serious read in alternating chapters. As always, Ronson packs a ton of enjoyably kooky characters into his books. Like the ...
** The Psychopath Test by Jon Robson is an informative non-fiction book. The book was written with intent to inform readers about the abundance of psychopaths in our world and how they impact our daily lives. The author is a journalist who has traveled the world to meet with professors...
The non-fiction genre can basically be divided into two groups: mediocre books by experts; well-written books by non-experts. I?d normally err on the side of wanting to read the latter kind of book, because who the hell wants to endure shitty prose? However, non-experts writing about...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
Jon Ronson goes on a mental illness odyssey in his book, The Psychopath Test, which takes in some extraordinary people and facts, and is, by turns, a funny and serious read in alternating chapters. As always, Ronson packs a ton of enjoyably kooky characters into his books. Like the ...
** The Psychopath Test by Jon Robson is an informative non-fiction book. The book was written with intent to inform readers about the abundance of psychopaths in our world and how they impact our daily lives. The author is a journalist who has traveled the world to meet with professors...
The non-fiction genre can basically be divided into two groups: mediocre books by experts; well-written books by non-experts. I?d normally err on the side of wanting to read the latter kind of book, because who the hell wants to endure shitty prose? However, non-experts writing about...
Ok, first of all, I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for the pop-psy. That being said, I really enjoyed this well-rounded take on psychopathy; from the use of labels to the tests to determine if a person is one. He did not take a position and try to convince us, except as a...
While Jon Ronson reveals a great deal about his own neuroses in this book, he casts little light on the psychopaths he is allegedly researching, though he does give some interesting insights into the "madness industry" of psychologists who have studied, categorized, labeled, and tried ...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
Jon Ronson goes on a mental illness odyssey in his book, The Psychopath Test, which takes in some extraordinary people and facts, and is, by turns, a funny and serious read in alternating chapters. As always, Ronson packs a ton of enjoyably kooky characters into his books. Like the ...
** The Psychopath Test by Jon Robson is an informative non-fiction book. The book was written with intent to inform readers about the abundance of psychopaths in our world and how they impact our daily lives. The author is a journalist who has traveled the world to meet with professors...
The non-fiction genre can basically be divided into two groups: mediocre books by experts; well-written books by non-experts. I?d normally err on the side of wanting to read the latter kind of book, because who the hell wants to endure shitty prose? However, non-experts writing about...
Ok, first of all, I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for the pop-psy. That being said, I really enjoyed this well-rounded take on psychopathy; from the use of labels to the tests to determine if a person is one. He did not take a position and try to convince us, except as a...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
Jon Ronson goes on a mental illness odyssey in his book, The Psychopath Test, which takes in some extraordinary people and facts, and is, by turns, a funny and serious read in alternating chapters. As always, Ronson packs a ton of enjoyably kooky characters into his books. Like the ...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
Jon Ronson goes on a mental illness odyssey in his book, The Psychopath Test, which takes in some extraordinary people and facts, and is, by turns, a funny and serious read in alternating chapters. As always, Ronson packs a ton of enjoyably kooky characters into his books. Like the ...
** The Psychopath Test by Jon Robson is an informative non-fiction book. The book was written with intent to inform readers about the abundance of psychopaths in our world and how they impact our daily lives. The author is a journalist who has traveled the world to meet with professors...
The non-fiction genre can basically be divided into two groups: mediocre books by experts; well-written books by non-experts. I?d normally err on the side of wanting to read the latter kind of book, because who the hell wants to endure shitty prose? However, non-experts writing about...
Ok, first of all, I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for the pop-psy. That being said, I really enjoyed this well-rounded take on psychopathy; from the use of labels to the tests to determine if a person is one. He did not take a position and try to convince us, except as a...
While Jon Ronson reveals a great deal about his own neuroses in this book, he casts little light on the psychopaths he is allegedly researching, though he does give some interesting insights into the "madness industry" of psychologists who have studied, categorized, labeled, and tried ...
For a book about psychopaths this was a surprisingly light(ish, come on, we're still talking about psychopaths here) read. The author is a journalist and it covers a wide range of the topic from interviewing a few (suspected) psychopaths, to speaking with psychiatrists who are involved...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
Jon Ronson goes on a mental illness odyssey in his book, The Psychopath Test, which takes in some extraordinary people and facts, and is, by turns, a funny and serious read in alternating chapters. As always, Ronson packs a ton of enjoyably kooky characters into his books. Like the ...
** The Psychopath Test by Jon Robson is an informative non-fiction book. The book was written with intent to inform readers about the abundance of psychopaths in our world and how they impact our daily lives. The author is a journalist who has traveled the world to meet with professors...
The non-fiction genre can basically be divided into two groups: mediocre books by experts; well-written books by non-experts. I?d normally err on the side of wanting to read the latter kind of book, because who the hell wants to endure shitty prose? However, non-experts writing about...
Ok, first of all, I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for the pop-psy. That being said, I really enjoyed this well-rounded take on psychopathy; from the use of labels to the tests to determine if a person is one. He did not take a position and try to convince us, except as a...
While Jon Ronson reveals a great deal about his own neuroses in this book, he casts little light on the psychopaths he is allegedly researching, though he does give some interesting insights into the "madness industry" of psychologists who have studied, categorized, labeled, and tried ...
For a book about psychopaths this was a surprisingly light(ish, come on, we're still talking about psychopaths here) read. The author is a journalist and it covers a wide range of the topic from interviewing a few (suspected) psychopaths, to speaking with psychiatrists who are involved...
A real thought provoker. What is a psychopath? Are you a psychopath? How about your friends or co-workers? This book will leave you diagnosing everyone you know and becoming all powerful with your new amazing psychopath detection skills, just like Jon Ronson. The book really made me th...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
***Warning: this review is not for the fainthearted.*** A video recently went viral of a Texas judge savagely beating his disabled teenage daughter with a belt. (view spoiler)[ Her mother tells her to "bend over and take it like a woman" moments after the man's sadistic promise t...
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend starting with Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door rather than this book. The problem with this one is that it's more "Follow me as I delve into this crazy world and have surreal experiences" than it is a study of sociopathy. And that...
A breezy, entertaining journey through the public effects of madness, with particular attention to the impact of the psychopath on society. Ronson is an excellent writer with a fine sense of humor who knows how to tell a good story in plain language. That he is able to do this wh...
I read this in about a 4 hour span, from 12 am - 4 am. It freaked me out and I slept with the lights on. But on with the review. So I've read things about psychopaths previously. How their brains are actually wired differently and they are unable to feel empathy, etcetc. Psychopath...
My first read of the year and it isn't what I was hoping for 3 I decided to jump on this because of my crazy love for Jon Ronson's newest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, but I realize now that I underestimated just how much the subject matter of that book contributed to my enjoym...
(3.5) I'm not sure how much I learned about Psychopaths but I learned I like the author a lot. He's awkward and anxious in the most relatable way! If you're going to read this book, do yourself a favour and get the audiobook! ...
Yesterday I saw a talk show on TV in which a Belgian politician said that the stock market is no gauge for happiness. This is so true. It reminded me of this book, in which the author, in his quest to uncover psychopaths, visits Al Dunlap. This was a man who actually enjoyed closing do...
I thought this would be a great tool for self-diagnosis, but actually Ronson skitters from one case to another without really making any definitive point. But maybe that?s the point. Psychopathy is probably not an absolute for most people, as there are many among us who exist in some...
?There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather int...
This was a bit of a disappointment. I found the first 50% of the book to be a bit forgettable. It was hard for me to see where Ronson was going with each chapter. Though I found the examination of mental illness, especially the stigmas around it and the potential harms of labeling to b...
This is what I might call "an oddly interesting book". I say that because in retrospect I'm a bit surprised that it holds the interest so well. Mr. Ronson begins with a strange little mystery concerning running down the source/writer of an (to use the same word) odd book that has been ...
I'm a fan of pop-psych books, so I was primed to enjoy this one. Journalist Jon Ronson was asked to investigate a mysterious, anonymous book that had been sent to numerous academics around the world. As he was following up on leads, he developed a theory that whoever sent it was so...
It is self explanatory that this review will make me enemies. Fortunately, those who know me are really the only ones at risk. Like many people, I took my first psychology class in high school and my interest was piqued. My second psychology class was during college, as was my thir...
An entertaining romp and with a fair bit of food for thought. I liked this book, while at the same time being disappointed with it. My main problem with the work was that I had heard that this book dealt extensively with the idea of psychopaths as possessing traits that tended to la...
This book is quite lame, to put it simply. I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was pretty damn funny, and I thought I?d read a book by Ronson. This book neither has much to say, nor is it that entertaining. It starts off with a bizarre (and unrelated to psycopathy) ?mystery...
. This review contains spoilers This is an hilarious book by a wonderful writer. He injects himself into the story in a way not dissimilar to Bill Bryson. It had me bellowing with laughter ? laughing at him, with him and at the strange and startling anecdotes that unfurled th...
Jon Ronson takes the reader on a journey into madness. What starts as a light-hearted investigation into a set of books sent to academics around the world, proceeds to be an investigation into aspects of the mental disease industry. What is a psychopath? How is medication for mental di...
The subtitle, ?a Journey Through the Madness Industry,? should have tipped me off. This was to be a self-consciously iconoclastic, too-cutesy look at psychiatry. I am a fan of Jon Ronson, but less so after this book. I enjoyed Them. I thought the sly Ronson did a stellar job of ...
Reads very easily and is well written in a journalistic sort of way. Ronson meanders through the mental health industry in a rather idiosyncratic way. The basis of the book concerns the psychopath checklist developed by Hare and Ronson manages to get himself invited into various high s...
This was a quite different book than I thought it would be when I first discovered it. Jon Ronson doesn't seem to follow the conventions of writing a study. In fact, it's non-fiction but definitely reads like fiction. Many thoughts passed through my head as I was reading it but what...
I've never read anything by Jon Ronson so I wasn't sure what to expect. I heard an interview with him about this book and was fascinated by the subject matter. I was not disappointed, this book is extremely interesting. I like Ronson's style a great deal, and his writing is very approa...
Strap in tightly, there's a scientology rant in here! Wheeee! Anybody who knows a marginal amount about sociopaths/psychopathy would be right in thinking it is dangerous, and can be, an evil condition. This book is not so much about that. Sure, it is Ronson's 'journey' through the m...
A book about psychopaths that I actually liked, minor miracle, and that made me think a lot about compassion. Okay, qualifications ? the book is more about ?the madness industry? ? the complex of media and medicine and science and big pharma and fucking weirdness that inform...
Jon Ronson goes on a mental illness odyssey in his book, The Psychopath Test, which takes in some extraordinary people and facts, and is, by turns, a funny and serious read in alternating chapters. As always, Ronson packs a ton of enjoyably kooky characters into his books. Like the ...
** The Psychopath Test by Jon Robson is an informative non-fiction book. The book was written with intent to inform readers about the abundance of psychopaths in our world and how they impact our daily lives. The author is a journalist who has traveled the world to meet with professors...
