Jon Ronson - The Psychopath Test

Part of Bristol Festival Of Ideas.

One day Jon Ronson is contacted by a leading neurologist, who, with others, has recently received a cryptically puzzling book in the mail. Jon is challenged to solve the mystery behind it and soon finds himself, unexpectedly, on an utterly compelling and often unbelievable adventure into the world of madness.

He meets a Broadmoor inmate who swears he faked a mental disorder to get a lighter sentence but is now stuck there, with nobody believing he’s sane; some of the people who catalogue mental illness, and those who vehemently oppose them; the influential psychologist who developed the industry standard Psychopath Test and who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are in fact psychopaths. Learning from him how to ferret out these high-flying psychopaths and, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, Jon heads into the corridors of power ...

As ever, Ronson unearths dangerous truths and asks serious questions about how we define normality in a world where we are increasingly judged by our maddest edges.