Lost at Sea

Starred review from January 7, 2013
British journalist Ronson amazes with a brand new, absurdly entertaining anthology of his Guardian and GQ pieces. The author has a knack for insinuating himself into the most entertaining of circumstances, whether that puts him behind the scenes of the Alaskan town whose citizens have for years been answering Santa Claus' letters, tagging along to a UFO convention with British pop megastar Robbie Williams, or enjoying unprecedented access to the archives and possessions of the late Stanley Kubrick. Ronson wrangles the most unlikely variety of nontraditional interview subjects, and cannily asks precisely the questions the reader didn't know needed asking. Some of the essays make for comparatively heavier reading than others, but the author continually shows his impressive aptitude for adapting his tone and style for the subject matter at hand; accordingly, an in-depth profile of Britain's community of assisted-suicide "midwives" manages to feel at home in the same volume as stories with much lower stakes, like his expose of a convicted game show cheat. The quality of Ronson's journalism, breadth of subjects, and bite-sized nature of the pieces makes this a great addition to one's nonfiction library. Agent: Derek Johns, A.P. Watt (UK).

Starred review from October 1, 2012
A sterling collection of amazing stories from an offbeat journalist at the top of his game. Ronson (The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, 2011, etc.) is a British writer and documentarian whose printed work appears mainly in the Guardian, where all but two of these pieces originally appeared. Perhaps best known for The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004), about the military's attempt to weaponize psychic phenomena, the author is a born skeptic who, nevertheless, is strongly attracted to the incredible and outre. The pieces range from a discussion about God, horror movies and magnets with the Insane Clown Posse to the title story, about a young woman who disappeared while working on a Disney cruise off the coast of Mexico. Ronson also visited mothers of "Indigo children" (toddling psychics), took pop star Robbie Williams to a UFO conference in New Mexico, leafed through director Stanley Kubrick's obsessively compulsive collection of film research artifacts, and weathered the wrath of the "sociopathic" inventor of neurolinguistic programming (among other extraordinary hotheads). Each piece is delicious in its own way, amusingly told by Ronson, who is always a character in the story. Two standouts: "Who Killed Richard Cullen?" a damning and prescient look at the credit industry's targeting of risky clients for subprime rates, and "Blood Sacrifice," about the Jesus Christians, a tiny sect that decided collectively to donate kidneys to strangers. Casual readers will find plenty to like about this excellent collection, but journalism and philosophy students should find it especially stimulating.

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