The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

Fun story, fast-paced, but ultimately not that educational or informative. Jon Ronson can't manage to stay on one topic long enough--he jumps from mysterious packages to psychopathy to reality TV to conspiracy theorists, and he never really settles on any one subject or interviewee long enough to thoroughly understand them. It was a fun introduction to the subject of psychopathy, but I know I don't fully understand the phenomenon and will need to find more books beyond Ronson's.

What is a psychotic? Is it like a schizophrenic? In an age in which politicians, financiers and community leaders so often teach themselves to "fake it to make it," sussing out the expert frauds is obviously a crucial issue -- since the late 1960's the DSM* has jumped from a few dozen pages to nearly a thousand, and psychiatric students study intently how to apply its principles -- while, at the same time, budding charlatans work it to learn how to fool it. _____ * Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, American Psychiatric Association. . Jon Ronson, who also gave us THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, has given us quite a helpful book here. He criss-crossed the UK for research, then headed over here to do the same, and finally compiled his own elaborate check-list of psychopathy. No psychiatric diagnosis succeeds without a DSM criterion, an aspect of the field of which the author is well aware. Yet I'm also aware that for all the well-practiced journalism Ronson brings to his topic (which reminds me of John McPhee, but a bit more casual), he could have been more focused. So read this book, but don't expect it to be the "be-all and end-all" of diagnosis.

This book is what really sparked my interest in psychopathy, so it hold a special place in my heart. I absolutely love this book, and have suggested it to anyone that comes to me asking for a good read; I even gave it to my counselor and he found it pretty interesting. Even if you're not interested in psychology in the slightest, The Psychopath Test is definitely one of my favorites.

Ronson is one of my favorite authors and this book is no exception to his excellence!