Jon Ronson / The truth is I’m exhausted

 

‘It was a very desolate 10 years for me. I was really floundering. I could not find my way.’ Photograph: Steve Schofield

Interview

Monica Lewinsky: ‘The truth is I’m exhausted’

This article is more than 10 years old

Nearly 20 years ago, Monica Lewinsky found herself at the heart of a political storm. Now she’s turned that dark time into a force for good

Jon Ronson
Friday 22 April 2016

One night in London in 2005, a woman said a surprisingly eerie thing to Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky had moved from New York a few days earlier to take a master’s in social psychology at the London School of Economics. On her first weekend, she went drinking with a woman she thought might become a friend. “But she suddenly said she knew really high-powered people,” Lewinsky says, “and I shouldn’t have come to London because I wasn’t wanted there.”

Lester Cohen//Getty Images

"You start to worry you’ll never listen to anything else": 25 years of Can’t Get You Out of My Head, the song that saw the future of pop

Rejected by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, the minimalist dance-pop opus would become the defining song of Kylie’s career. And, a quarter of a century later, it hasn’t lost its capacity to burrow its way into your brain. La la la …

Review

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup

Massif by Garth Nix; Revolution in the Heart: Stories Inspired By Ursula K Le Guin edited by Jonathan Strahan; An Immaculate Deception by Isabela Livino; Serenity Falls by CJ Tudor

John Waters: ‘You never know if your waiter here is an ex-con and I think that adds a certain appeal’. Photograph: Lyndon Hayes

Interview

John Waters: 'the key to happiness is a pair of underpants in each of your homes'

This article is more than 14 years old

The cult film director talks therapy and some surprising rules of gift-giving etiquette

Ariel Leve
Sunday 13 November de 2011

H

ow perplexing it must have been for passengers arriving at Baltimore's train station to see film-maker John Waters – ordained the "Pope of Trash" by William Burroughs – standing there, instantly recognisable with his pencil-thin moustache and pencil-thin frame wearing sunglasses and a sand-coloured silk suit darkened with splashes of rain, as though he had just been caught in a downpour.

Ariel Leve

This article is more than 10 years old

Ariel Leve: 'I was the parent and my mother was the child'

The journalist grew up on New York’s Upper East Side with her mother, a celebrated poet who partied with Andy Warhol and Saul Bellow. Now she’s lifting the lid on a deeply unhappy childhood

Jon Ronson
Saturday 10 July 2016

This is the first time I have ever been interviewed.” Ariel Leve sits opposite me in a cafe in Manhattan’s West Village. Her childhood memoir, An Abbreviated Life, is about to be published and she looks vigilant – like a soldier who has done everything to prepare for battle, but understands that unforeseen perils may strike at any time. I imagine this is Leve’s stance for every situation, not only interviews. On many occasions she’ll say, “I would like you to explain exactly what you’re asking,” and, “What do you mean? I want to have that clarity.”

 Photograph: Steve Schofield

Josh Ostrovsky: ‘The internet is like a giant weird orgy’

This article is more than 10 years old

Instagram superstar, comic, rapper ... and plagiarist, too? Meet Josh Ostrovsky, aka the Fat Jew

Jon Ronson
Saturday 7 November 2015

The internet sensation and now memoirist Josh Ostrovsky, aka the Fat Jew, is 15 minutes late to meet me, which is annoying because he’s actually chatting with a friend right outside this coffee shop window. He’s wearing a hoodie, novelty sunglasses and a gold necklace that reads “Life” in Hebrew. He’s a big man with a shaggy afro which, when he spends time on it, can be manipulated into a kind of unicorn’s horn. Today it’s not a horn. People recognise him. Passersby look impressed. We’re in an area of Brooklyn called Dumbo, and I’m sitting inside the cafe with two of his publicists, who insist on being present throughout the interview. It is all weirdly corporate, given that Ostrovsky’s an Instagram comedian; but last March, Time magazine named him one of the “30 most influential people on the internet”.

Chasing the Northern lights / A winter journey to Iceland

 

A brown cottage beneath a glowing aurora borealis

Chasing the Northern lights 

A winter journey to Iceland, seen through a child’s wonder and a family’s shared adventure

Orsolya Antoni

12 August 2026

My daughter is an exceptionally bright and curious little girl. Recently, she learnt about the mesmerising Northern Lights at her nursery, and since then, our lives have been infused with wonder and excitement surrounding this natural phenomenon. She has eagerly watched nearly every documentary available, her eyes wide with amazement, and she has bombarded me with a flurry of questions about this enchanting spectacle. Determined to make her dreams come true, I decided that witnessing the Northern Lights firsthand would be the ultimate gift. So, with a sense of adventure in our hearts, I purchased our tickets, and soon we will embark on a magical journey to Iceland in December, where we will chase the vibrant colours dancing across the winter sky.

  

A woman photographs a building in Paris, Île-de-France, France

Paris through a visitor’s eyes

How the city of light reveals its culture, artistry, and everyday elegance beyond the iconic landmarks

Orsolya Antoni

12 June 2026

In 2017, I had the extraordinary opportunity to explore one of the world’s most enchanting cities: Paris. Often celebrated as a symbol of romance and elegance, the city reveals a much deeper identity when experienced through the eyes of a visitor. Beyond its iconic landmarks lies an intricate cultural landscape shaped by history, art, philosophy, and the everyday rituals of its people. Paris is not merely a destination; it is a living masterpiece where the past and present coexist, creating a unique atmosphere that captivates and inspires.

The Sunday Courier, Issue No. 36, September 3–10, 1911. The theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre on August 21, 1911, quickly became a global media sensation, transforming the painting into a world-famous icon. Newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, covered what was widely described as the “art heist of the century,” publishing dramatic headlines and detailed reports on the investigation, the search for suspects, and the painting’s eventual recovery in 1913

The Mona Lisa: a timeless encounter

From Renaissance mastery to modern wonder, exploring the mystery behind the world’s most famous painting

12 September 2026

Orsolya Antoni

When I traveled to Paris, one of the main highlights of my visit was seeing the Mona Lisa in person. Standing in the crowded gallery of the Louvre Museum, surrounded by people from all over the world, I finally came face-to-face with one of the most famous paintings ever created. Despite its relatively small size, the painting has an undeniable presence. It felt surreal to witness a work of art that has fascinated humanity for over 500 years.

Chris Mark in his castle. Photograph: Marisa Balletti-Lavoie

A party, 101 princesses and an eccentric millionaire: Jon Ronson on a mysterious castle – and what it taught him about masculinity in crisis

When my son texted me from a Connecticut fortress in the middle of the night with an alarming message, it set me on a quest to understand the bizarre lifestyle of its owner

Jon Ronson
Friday 21 August 2026

Iawoke one morning in the summer of 2023 to discover that, while I’d slept, my son Joel had been texting my wife and me a series of unnerving messages about a perilous situation he had found himself in, in Connecticut.

From what I could tell, as I frantically tried to piece together the night’s events, one of Joel’s friends had been invited to a party being held by a stranger she’d met that week on Tinder. So Joel and two others went along for the ride. But when they arrived, they found the man’s home so bizarre that Joel did something he’d never done before – he sent me the coordinates of his location and a photograph, just in case.

Review

The Castle by Jon Ronson review – bizarre tales of modern masculinity

A journalist embarks on a wild goose chase that might – or might not – be informative about the male condition

Anthony Cummings
Tuesday 8 September 2026

 

Recovering from surgery at home in upstate New York in 2023, Jon Ronson awoke to a string of texts from his adult son about a weird evening he just had at a stranger’s castle in Connecticut. Having gone along with a friend who’d been invited to a party there, he arrived to find a few lost-looking young women with the sixtysomething host, Chris Mark, a steel heir filming a reality show about “101 princesses” whose first rule was “Never say no to King Chris”.

100 years after John Coltrane’s birth, secret tapes are emerging

‘This was social music’ … John Coltrane.

100 years after John Coltrane’s birth, secret tapes are emerging. What can they tell us about jazz’s great rulebreaker?

The sax star turned his back on fame to embrace free jazz. Caught on a tape machine hidden in an overcoat, newly revealed recordings show how he did it


Ammar Kalia

Fri 11 Sep 2026 08.00 BST

In August 1965, at the height of his fame, saxophonist John Coltrane headlined the DownBeat jazz festival in Chicago. Taking to the stage with a new member of his band, young experimentalist Archie Shepp on tenor, Coltrane’s quartet blew through a series of jagged and free improvisations, straying from structured compositions and, instead, hurling down sheets of sound so loud and aggressive that they reportedly caused widespread walk-outs. DownBeat’s own reviewer later wrote: “They gave as tasteless a display of musicianship as I’ve ever heard … Shepp and Coltrane seemed to be more interested in trying to out-honk, out-squeal and out-bleat each other than in playing music.”