The classic book on social media and public shaming, now with a brand new chapter examining the shaming of Monica Lewinsky.

Celebrating Fifty Years of Picador Books

Jon Ronson's captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame.

‘It’s about the terror, isn’t it?’
‘The terror of what?’ I said.
‘The terror of being found out.’

The rise of social media has seen a great renaissance in public shaming. Justice has been democratized. The silent majority are getting a voice. But what are we doing with that voice? We are mercilessly finding people’s faults, and defining the boundaries of normality by ruining the lives of those outside it. We are using shame as a form of social control.

Simultaneously powerful and hilarious in the way only Jon Ronson can be, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is a deeply honest book about modern life, full of eye-opening truths about the escalating war on human flaws – and the very scary part we all play in it.

This edition features a new chapter and interview with perhaps the most famous public shaming victim of all – Monica Lewinsky.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

"He is such an exceptional writer . . . an incredibly funny writer . . . a perfect sense of comic timing throughout, but he manages to deal with profound subjects . . . so enjoyable . . . you can be having a laugh while understanding a social phenomenon in a completely unique way; it's such a great book . . . We're buying it!" - The BBC Radio 2 Arts Show with Claudia Winkleman

"A magnificent book, subtly argued, often painfully funny and yet deeply serious. . . I'm not sure I can recommend it highly enough" - Daily Mail

"A work of original, inspired journalism, it considers the complex dynamics between those who shame and those who are shamed, both of whom can become the focus of social media's grotesque, disproportionate judgments" - Financial Times

"Superb and terrifying . . . relentlessly entertaining and thought-provoking " - Guardian

"Ronson is our current master of smarter-than-average pop nonfiction that combines social science, investigative journalism and no shortage of style . . . Ronson and his subjects are strikingly candid about their fears, which is compelling if not always comfortable to read. But the book slowly turns out to be about something bigger than it seems: a survival guide to living with shame both public and private, an inevitable consequence of being human." - Saturday Paper (Australia)

"Ronson's finely attuned ear for dialogue and his skilfully deployed nebbishness ensure a pacy but discomfiting read" - The Australian

"Jon Ronson's great strength as a writer is his empathy with his subject, which seems to bring about trust and openness from his interviewees. Like all journalists, he is a voyeur, but he is sensitive with his material and self-analytical enough to realise his own part in the phenomenon. So You've Been Publicly Shamed is an interesting commentary on human behaviour and its consequences." - The Register

"immensely readable" - Independent

"[A] brilliant, thought-provoking book - a fascinating examination of citizen justice, which has enjoyed a great renaissance since the advent of the internet" - Tatler

"Amusing and thought-provoking" - Daily Telegraph

"Certainly, no reader could finish it without feeling a need to be gentler online, to defer judgment, not to press the retweet button, to resist that primal impulse to stoke the fires of shame" - The Times

"As in his previous books, Ronson's style is to take us with him wherever the story goes, curiosity his guide. But unlike bestsellers The Men Who Stare At Goats (US new age warfare), The Psychopath Test (the mental health 'industry') or Them (ideological extremism), Shamed is not a critique of those at the fringes of our society, it's about us - or at least the very many of us who take to Twitter to heap vitriol on those we feel deserve it" - Metro

"Jon Ronson is one of the funniest writers we have" - Red

"Hugely entertaining" - National

"Engrossing and terrifying" - New Statesman

"Ronson specialises in writing witty, wide-eyed, free-wheeling books . . . He is full of curiosity, and writes in a friendly, slightly faux-naif voice, but with strong moral antennae" - Mail on Sunday

"Compulsively readable" - Observer

"So You've Been Publicly Shamed is possibly [Ronson's] most ambitious project yet . . . a brilliantly articulated, sensitively rendered attempt to reform the world" - Independent

"So You've Been Publicly Shamed is fascinating, insightful and amusing and should be read by everyone" - Women24

"Everyone who has any kind of online presence - including anonymous below-the-line commenters - will find this book gripping . . . Ronson remains one of our finest comic writers" - Spectator

"[A] simultaneously lightweight and necessary book" - Esquire

"I was mesmerized. And I was also disturbed" - Forbes

"Gutsy and smart. . . Without losing any of the clever agility that makes his books so winning, he has taken on truly consequential material and risen to the challenge" - New York Times

"Read this book. Then tell someone else about it. Make sure you leave it in a place where an unsuspecting teen is lingering, they too could benefit from these timely fables of the digital world" - Wairarapa Times

"A gripping book, well written, articulate, honest and incredibly relevant in today's society. A book everyone with a twitter account should read . . . This is a book that will grip you and really make you think about 21st century society in a different way, definitely one to read, and one to read now" - New Zealand Library Blogspot

"Ronson is adept at taking a topic and explaining it through a number of case studies . . . His facts are gathered first-hand, his experiences conveyed with sharp observations of scene and character, and his conclusions logical. As contemporary society becomes ever more connected, Ronson's lessons will become even more important" - Sunday Star Times

"Witty . . .clever and thought-provoking" - Publishers Weekly

"This book really needed to be written" - Salon

"One of our most important modern day thinkers, Jon Ronson . . . has written one of the most therapeutic books imaginable" - US News & Word Report

"I very much enjoyed Jon Ronson's salutary examination of what happens when the internet turns on you: So You've Been Publicly Shamed (Picador). One stupid picture, one misplaced joke, and your life can be completely trashed. The book examines a very dark corner of the times we live in but manages to be both entertaining and humane" - Telegraph

"So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson is the non-fiction book of the year - an alarming examination of victims and victimisers in the new social media sport of mob justice." - Guardian

"[Ronson] takes on one of the most egregious perils of life in the age of social media - the whopping magnification of some gaffe or misstep or downright lie - to the point that it achieves life-wrecking power. . .there's a lot to learn from his funny, insightful look at this red-hot topic" - New York Times, Top Books of 2015

"Yes, it's a breezy read at the sentence level, but Ronson's latest book evokes a sense of dread that lingers." - TimeOut, Best Books of 2015

"Simmering with humour, weirdness and pathos" - Sunday Times, Books of the Year