When I was going to college, I worked part time in an independent bookstore. I loved being surrounded by books and meeting interesting people (like my future husband), and most of my paycheck went right back into the store. At the time, I was really only interested in reading fiction. I spent most of my money on fantasy novels – anything by Alice Hoffman, classics I never read in school, young adult books, things suggested by customers, and more. I bought graphic novels, and huge art books (that I didn’t always read), poring over the images with appreciation. With a 35% discount, I felt like I needed to take advantage and stock up.

At the time, nonfiction seemed boring. It reminded me of a school assignment. But one day when I was shelving books, a book cover caught my eye.

Them by Jon Ronson, was a pretty unassuming book. The cover was red, with lots of text, and a picture of a guy who looked uncomfortable, his posture apologizing that we even had to look at him. I must have looked at it in passing ten times before I finally picked it up. What about this book was getting to me? Obviously the red cover stood out, but lots of books have bright colors and more interesting illustrations. I finally took the time to read the full title and blurb – Them: Adventures with Extremists, “a story of an investigative reporter who tries to follow up on the claims made by various extremist and conspiracy groups that there is an elite, secret group who really runs the world, known as the Bilderberg Group.” I looked at this nerdy, self conscious guy who was apparently brave enough to meet with some strange and dangerous people, and I was intrigued. Who was this guy? What did he find? I had to make an exception from my usual purchases and find out.

Instead of slogging through the book like required reading, I found it more fascinating than fiction. How could this stuff be real?! I was in my early twenties, and though I knew generally about conspiracy theories around the moon landing being fake and others, I hadn’t yet discovered the true scope of strange ideas out there. Ronson meets with David Icke, a former English football/soccer player, who travels the world lecturing on his findings that many world leaders are actually lizard people in disguise. He talks with people from militias, religious radical groups, and American white supremacists, who all believe that there is a group of powerful men who are pulling the strings to affect world events.

Ronson doesn’t make these people out to be cartoonish villains. He tries to take them at their word to start off with, sincerely following them down various rabbit holes. Ok, Ronson implies, if there is this group of global elites running the world, then who are they? What do they want? Where do they meet? He asks for leads and evidence, and then sets out to see what he can find. Remarkably, he does end up at some private, exclusive meetings attended by some of the Bilderberg Group. Are these people really the masterminds that those groups believe them to be?

Part of Ronson’s empathic charm is his ability to find humanity in everyone, while also admitting when he thinks they are totally full of it. He is not a Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo style reporter with little to no fear. He fully admits his panic attacks and nervousness when interviewing his subjects, particularly antisemitic racists who believe in a plot for world domination by Jews, all the more troubling for Ronson, as he is Jewish himself. His anxiety and apprehension about this and other prejudiced canards are palpable in his writing.

I have become a fan of his, and have read most of his other works throughout the years. You may have heard of The Men Who Stare At Goats, another investigative piece about the US military using psychic warfare, that was turned into a movie with George Clooney and Ewan McGregor. The Psychopath Test is a book that looks into the idea of psychopathy, in particular who decides what a psychopath is, how do they do it, and how should society handle these individuals?  So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is about online shaming and bullying, and Ronson has other books that are collections of his articles from various publications.

At this point, deep dives into the stranger parts of human thought and subculture are certainly not the only kind of nonfiction books I read, but Them: Adventures with Extremists, was one of the first books that made realize reading about things that really happened can be just as interesting as, or stranger than fiction. Jon Ronson helped me see that.

Nicole Guerra-Coon is the Assistant Children’s Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood MA. Look for her article in the April 16, 2020 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.