This is an investigation into some of the weird things the US military have tried to use for interrogation and espionage. It includes subliminal messaging, psychic spying, blasting children's music, and of course, staring goats to death. I saw the movie years ago, but don't really remember it. I enjoyed So You've Been Publicly Shamed, so thought I'd give Ronson another go. This book was well written and fairly interesting, but the topic didn't interest me particularly.

This title peaked my interest primarily because of the movie. The movie was a more continuous narrative ark that brought together the different pieces of the book. Characters got changed up a little and I think it's because of that that I had a slightly harder time following the book because there were so many characters.
I will say, I think I'm going to become a Jon Ronson follower. His style has just the right amount of snark to make me laugh but take him seriously. His ability to ferret out the so-bizarre-it-must-be-real stuff has me enthralled.
For some the shadier side of the Shrub Administration, read the book. For a narrative ark, watch the movie. Both are funny and engaging.

PS 2018 Challenge: A book made into a movie I've already seen

So here's my problem with this book. The author manages to string together a long series of random tidbits in what appears to be a coherent manner, but ultimately there was no point to anything we as readers have learned. "Hey everyone, look at all of the weird things our armed forces experimented with during the war on terror! They played a Barney song over and over! They played a Sesame Street song and the composer tried to sue for royalties! Maybe the CIA killed someone once or maybe they gave them LSD in an experiment and they lost their shit."

It's all sort of fascinating in its premise (did the secretary of the armed services really believe that he could walk through walls? can you really kill gerbils with your impure thoughts?) , but when I was done reading I wasn't sure what the point was. Sometimes the author is praising the idea of alternative battle methods. Sometimes he's mocking. Sometimes he's indifferent as a reporter. Sometimes he is actively goading people into delivering absurd information.

It was entertaining, but by and large it didn't really deliver on its promise as an absurdly entertaining collection of information with a defined message of some sort.

You know that bit in It's Always Sunny where Charlie is explaining the company conspiracy he's come across in front of that huge notice board of threads n papers n shit? That's what this book is

It's light and a little humorous but it's also a mess lmao. When explaining it to Phil he rightly said 'isnt this book about goats??'

It just goes to so many different places, covering different lil US military conspiracies but never really reaching any conclusions. It's all very suggestive and speculative. Like a series of statements goin 'how about this?' 'What about this huh?'

It does get ya into that fun conspiracy theorist mindset and Ronson is definitely playing to this intentionally and bringin some showmanship, but I also think it seems like his starring goats to death story dried up and he had to compensate with padding out from other stories.

The interviews and the people and events involved are rEAL tho and it offers food for thought. Maybe not substantial food. Nibbles. Crisps n dips for thought. Theres definitely some wild shit happening in the military that we know nothin about, and this book dips a fun, easy, commercially accessible toe into it.