![]() ![]() Under-told story … Alec Guinness in the 1959 film of Our Man in Havana. But at a higher level, the book tells us something about how feeding the longing for a god can, if corrupted, get very, very crooked indeed. Miller considers Scientology’s boasts about their founder and on critical examination, all of it – that L Ron was a war hero, an explorer, a nuclear scientist (and not a bigamist) – turns to dust. This extraordinary biography of L Ron Hubbard tells the gobsmacking truth about the greatest conman of the 20th century, a title for which there’s a lot of competition. The boys were sent home in zinc coffins – hence the title. It’s a lament for a noble idealism that turned sick. She tells the stories of individual soldiers and Soviet citizens, in Kabul and elsewhere, coming to realise that the ideals of fraternity and solidarity the old men in Moscow spout are toxic. The 2015 Nobel laureate’s stunning work on the Soviet agony in Afghanistan is simply written but no less profound for that. Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghan War by Svetlana Alexievich ![]() The helplessness of ordinary people in the face of corrupt entitlement has never been better told.Ĥ. When power indulges in murder, hypocrisy and paedophilia, the forces of law and order don’t just look the other way, they entrap the honest detective. At the dead centre of the American Dream is a lie, a city built on wrongdoing. To me, this is the defining work of art about the corruption that is the essence of LA the living, breathing, pulsing dishonesty of Tinseltown. ![]() When people rot, Koestler tells us, they do so from within. It’s great literature, but at its heart is the corruption of a human soul, as the great revolutionary Rubashov allows himself to be ruined – and ruin others he loves – to serve an ideal. The outstanding novel about how the Russian revolution became twisted by Stalinism. Rereading Macbeth, you get the flavour of what it must be like to be at the court of Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, or of Caliph Al-Baghdadi in Isisland: “It will have blood, they say blood will have blood.” It still grips me, this play written in 1611 about a Scottish nobleman corrupted by the lust for power who goes on to kill a good king and – to secure his grip on the throne – keeps on killing. You can sign up to receive it directly here.Below is my idiosyncratic selection of the books that pass two tests: they’re all great reads, and their subjects are rotten to the core. ![]() "For the first time, the dirt is being uncovered from within the Vatican, rather than from outside," Francis said.Įach evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. The pope stressed that the internal investigation was going well. These were the first public comments made by Pope Francis on the issue of financial corruption. "What happened, happened: a scandal. They did things that do not seem clean," the pope said. The pope has previously said that such a purchase is not necessarily a misuse of charity funds. The pope told reporters that there was a Vatican investigation underway into the allegedly fraudulent use of the Peter's Pence, the pope's charity fund, to buy a luxury property in central London. Read more: Opinion: A synod that could make history It is an ugly thing, it's not nice for this to happen in the Vatican," Francis said during an in-flight press conference on the way back from Japan. With the interrogations we will see if they are guilty or not. The pope's statement marked the first time he has acknowledged corruption in Vatican finances. Pope Francis admitted there is financial corruption in the Vatican, describing it as a "scandal" on Tuesday. ![]()
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