Showing results by author "Oliver Broudy" in All Categories

They call themselves "sensitives". Over 50 million Americans endure a mysterious environmental illness that renders them allergic to chemicals. Innocuous staples from deodorant to garbage bags wreak havoc on sensitives. For them, the enemy is modernity itself. No one is born with EI. It often starts with a single toxic exposure. Then, the symptoms hit: extreme fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches, inability to tolerate certain foods. With over 85,000 chemicals in the environment, danger lurks around every corner.

Call it the flattening effect. The process by which mystery is leached from life and replaced by weary literalism. Age is the primary culprit, abetted by desensitizing technology and the reductive shove of science. At a certain point, thought becomes synapse, talk becomes tweet, and all Netflix movies seem to merit three stars. Gradually the world recedes from your touch until the only things that still feel real are sex and video games.

Journalist Oliver Broudy spent a day talking with mega pop star Justin Bieber as they cruised Beverly Hills in his Rolls Phantom - shopping at Saint Laurent, dodging crazed fans, consulting his health guru, pumping iron at an elite club, and dining at Spago's. In the whisper quiet of the Rolls, Justin slowly reveals himself. After building a career on youthful charisma, he says he's finally ready to leave the boyish persona behind and become a man. But are you ready to believe him?

George Plimpton was no ordinary writer slaving in a garret. He knew everyone, corresponded with everyone, and traveled the world collecting all manner of ephemera. When he died he left behind an enormous stash of literary miscellany - letters from Hunter Thompson, postcards from Raymond Carver, marked-up book drafts, slides from a Playboy shoot... What to do with it all?

"This is going to be an adventure," James says presciently. "I have a feeling both of us are going to be very different after this." And so it proves, as one jaded New Yorker is swept by a spiritually radiant revolutionary on a journey of transformation, from the narcissistic bubble of New York City to the sweeping vistas of the Dhauladhar mountains in northern India.

The deepest riddle of Christianity is only this: How could anyone possibly believe it? In answer to this question, The Convert tells the true story of one man's punishing journey across the extremes of human experience, through fire and heartbreak, passion and betrayal, prison and madness, to the very brink of belief. This is the story of one man and one moment - the moment of God's triumph or sanity's defeat.

Autor Oliver Broudy sucht eine Flucht aus seinem Alltag, als ein routinemäßiger Journalismus-Job ihm das Projekt seines Lebens offeriert: James Otis - ein Kreativer, Sammler von Gandhi-bezogenen Memorabilien und wohlhabender Verehrer des großen Mahatmas. So beginnt ein Abenteuer, das Broudy um die halbe Welt führt, und ihn gezwungenermaßen im Namen von Otis in die Rolle des Freundes, Beschützers, PR-Agenten, und vielen anderen schlüpfen lässt.