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The Castle
  • Published: 20 August 2026
  • ISBN: 9781405977289
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

The Castle

Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
25 Aug 2026
Hardback
20 Sept 2026
EBook
20 Aug 2026
Audiobook
20 Aug 2026
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From the million-copy bestselling author of The Psychopath Test comes a twisting, darkly comic true-life story about one man, his castle, a generation of unravelling men – and a secret hidden deep behind the castle walls.

** AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW **

The million-copy bestselling author of The Psychopath Test returns with a shocking, darkly comic trip to the furthest reaches of the masculinity crisis

I honestly have no clue what is going on.
This is very weird.
We left. Was completely fucked. All good now.

When Jon Ronson received a series of disquieting texts from his son Joel who’d been lured to a mysterious castle in the forests of New England late one night, it sets Ronson Sr. off on an extraordinary adventure into an underworld of unmoored and disaffected men.

As Jon follows his instincts and deepens his investigation into the castle and the wider ‘man crisis’ – some of whom are feeling tossed around in a sea of conflicting ideologies of what it means to be a man – urgent questions come to light. What exactly is ‘Princessing’? Why did a charming lawncare influencer dress as a baby in front of billions of online viewers, with catastrophic results? And more pressingly, why are two recently released murderers on their way to pay Jon a visit?

From the death of utopian factory towns to the false promise of YouTube influencer culture, Jon shows us our rapidly changing world like never before, and the men caught in the middle. A world drained of purpose, of collapsing institutions, where a new era of disinhibited behaviour has taken hold of our online and real-world selves. And as the castle mystery twists and turns into a cat and mouse story, will Jon be able to discover its terrifying secret hidden from the world?

The Castle marks Jon Ronson’s triumphant return to the written page. Utterly hilarious and criminally entertaining, this is one of our greatest non-fiction writers at the top of his game: diagnosing our societal frailties in a narrative of blistering pace, insight and intensity.

'Ridiculously compelling and wonderfully weird . . . The Castle is vintage Ronson: wise, timely and extremely funny' LOUIS THEROUX
  • Published: 20 August 2026
  • ISBN: 9781405977289
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

About the author

Jon Ronson

Jon Ronson’s non-fiction books include So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Lost at Sea and The Men Who Stare At Goats. They have all been international and/or New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Most recently, Jon made two series of the acclaimed BBC podcast Things Fell Apart, which won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for podcast of the year and reached number one in the UK and Ireland podcast charts. Before that came three Audible Original audio series: The Debutante, which won the 2023 Signal Gold Award for best true crime podcast, The Butterfly Effect and The Last Days of August. The Psychopath Test spent more than a year on the UK bestseller list. Jon’s live show based on the book – Psychopath Night – has sold out theatres and concert halls across the UK and Ireland. The next leg of the tour will kick off in November 2025. He lives in New York.
JR

Also by Jon Ronson

Things Fell Apart
See all

Praise for The Castle

Ridiculously compelling and wonderfully weird, this is a book that helps us understand why so many men seem to be unravelling, filling their lives with ill-conceived dreams and self-performance. The Castle is vintage Ronson: wise, timely and extremely funny

LOUIS THEROUX

Every Jon Ronson book has made me see the world differently. Nobody tells an unbelievable-but-true story like him. He's done it again with The Castle: I was utterly gripped from page one. If you want a totally compelling live mystery that will make you burn for justice, READ THIS BOOK URGENTLY

MARINA HYDE

Fantastic and intensely of-the-moment, The Castle explores the nature of male anxiety, the spiralling delusions of the internet, the destructive allure of anti-woke defiance, the obsequious flattery of AI chatbots, the impunity of the mega-rich and so many other subtle (and not so subtle) currents that are currently roiling our existence . . . one of the scarier aspects of this book is the way the ante seems always to be upping, across its various stories and characters. It's a dogged feat of investigation from one of our greatest non-fiction storytellers

PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE

The Castle is an investigation into one man that broadens into an enquiry into the state of all men. Jon Ronson is such a companiable narrator, and this book is by turns horrifying, hilarious, bizarre and gripping

ED CAESAR 

Jon Ronson is an essential guide in these disorienting times. I love everything that Ronson writes but The Castle is a particular gem, a story of his own making in the collapsing world of twenty-first century masculinity. Wonderfully breathless and weird and open, it feels hallucinatory and all too real at the same time

SAM KNIGHT

Addictively readable, I loved The Castle. This is a much-needed book – an anti-sensationalist yet utterly compelling investigation into the masculinity crisis

DOLLY ALDERTON

Ronson delivers a by turns amusing and harrowing report on the desultory state of contemporary men . . . brilliant . . . Ronson’s intuitive but still rigorous approach makes this a blockbuster portrait of men gone mad

Publishers Weekly