New York Times

Memoirs,” a new collection of Lowell's nonfiction, includes a coming-of-age autobiography that may be the best thing he ever wrote.

Upon leaving the clinic in 1954 after a protracted stay he immediately went to work on “My Autobiography,” going so far as to move with Elizabeth Hardwick, his wife at the time, to a house only a block away from 91 Revere Street so as to better stimulate these memories of childhood. (By way of comparison, consider Hemingway’s brilliantly nasty portraits in “A Moveable Feast,” of Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Wyndham Lewis, with the eyes “of an unsuccessful rapist.”) But Lowell was nothing if not politic in this regard, among others. Apart from a chapter called “91 Revere Street,” which made its way into “Life Studies,” “My Autobiography” sat in Lowell’s desk drawer for decades, unpublished and unread until Giroux plucked two more of its chapters and combined them for an essay in “Collected Prose.” It deserves a wider audience. He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1947 with “Lord Weary’s Castle” and his second in 1974 with “The Dolphin,” and in between he won pretty much every other award there was to win. His own poetry had been blocked for some time, and in the process of relating the scenes and events of his childhood Lowell experienced a loosening up of feelings attached to memory. When in the 1960s, amid that decade’s turmoil of Vietnam, civil rights, assassinations, riots, he became a prominent public intellectual, like Mailer and others, and wrote public poetry — some of it, like “For the Union Dead” and “Waking Early Sunday Morning,” not only among his personal best but also among the best poetry of the century — his renown increased manyfold. “My Autobiography” makes up about 40 percent of “Memoirs” and is easily the best writing in the book. Lowell was always a capable prose writer, but the language on display in this childhood memoir is a good deal more than that. Though Lowell could be both humorous and lighthearted in life, he rarely showed it in his work. Lowell was easily the pre-eminent poet of his generation and certainly, for good or ill, the most influential. He was raised in the sort of severe, stifling household where the “inherited Victorian Myers furniture … mahogany, cherry, teak, looked nervous and disproportioned,” and where if a servant came into the “bleak” dining room at the wrong time a lightning bolt would surely issue down from the heavens, tearing the ancestral home asunder, collapsing around the residents like the walls of ancient Jericho. It is true that he’s the poster boy, if ever there was one, of white male privilege: a Lowell, of the Boston Lowells, “who speak only to the Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God.” A descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims, Robert Lowell was not only unapologetic about his storied ancestry, it is the subject of much of his poetry.

Sign up for the Read Like the Wind newsletter Book recommendations from our critic Molly Young. Try this subscriber-only newsletter for a limited time. Get it ...

It is not for the squeamish but (or rather, and) is easily one of the best novels I’ve read this year. Surely this is not what people mean when they refer to “the power of literature.” And yet it is a power of literature. But he has a secret weapon in the form of nuclear-strength charisma that obliterates the reservations of his new neighbors. The setting is a lakeside town at the north end of the province. A friend recently sent some gorgeous examples that she found in a paper store in Venice. (When I die, please reincarnate me as a Venetian paper store.) The internet brims with collections of plates to enjoy. After learning to read, I jettisoned the junk box for a grander scheme of conquest.

SATURDAY — Hi busy bees! Welcome to today's Spelling Bee forum. There are a number of terms that appear in both this article and other online discussions of ...

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The corporate owners of The Aspen Times did not allow it to cover a libel lawsuit against the paper, demoralizing the newsroom, former staff members say.

This week, The Aspen Times published a column by its latest editor, who said he hoped to rebuild the staff and “rise from the ashes.” Two days later, it posted its article investigating Mr. Doronin’s finances. The aftermath led to a newsroom exodus and rattled public confidence in the newspaper, according to interviews with more than a dozen local journalists, officials and Aspen residents. There was not a public peep from The Aspen Times until after the lawsuit was settled in May. Mr. Travers said he discussed his plans with his publisher, Ms. Pattillo, before he ran the pieces in June. But hours after they were published, he said, he was called into a meeting and fired by an Ogden official. Officials with Ogden Newspapers decided not to cover the lawsuit while the two sides sought a settlement. In the libel complaint, Mr. Doronin accused the paper of stoking anti-Russian sentiment and making “misplaced Russophobic attacks” against him. Aspen residents and leaders said they were shocked to read in the local paper that the developers had sold. In an email, Mr. Doronin said that Aspen’s “special energy” had drawn him to look for investment and development opportunities there after years of visits to ski and attend summer cultural events. In the libel complaint against The Aspen Times, Mr. Doronin’s lawyers said he had earned his money legitimately, free of bribery or corruption, and had no affiliation with President Vladimir V. Putin. I’d like to thank you for reading The Times and encourage you to support journalism like this by becoming a subscriber. In an interview, Mr. Gorsuch said the sale had been a business decision. But the episode demoralized the newsroom and brought criticism around Aspen that the paper’s owners had been cowed by a developer.

In the weeks after President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, the Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claimed to have “tremendous evidence” that voter fraud ...

The company had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on security and lost hundreds of millions more in business, according to its complaint. Fox News and Fox Business gave a platform to some of the loudest purveyors of these theories, including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, and Mr. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, in the days and weeks after major news outlets including Fox declared Joseph R. Biden Jr. the president-elect. Asked about Dominion’s strategy to place the Murdochs front and center in the case, a Fox Corporation spokesman said it would be a “fruitless fishing expedition.” A spokeswoman for Fox News said it was “ridiculous” to claim, as Dominion does in the suit, that the network was chasing viewers from the far-right fringe. As part of its case, it cites one of the most indelible images from the Jan. 6 attack: a man in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, clutching zip ties in his left hand. “When the president and his lawyers are making allegations, that in and of itself is newsworthy,” Dan Webb, the trial lawyer brought in by Fox several weeks ago, said in an interview. For Dominion to convince a jury that Fox should be held liable for defamation and pay damages, it has to clear an extremely high legal bar known as the “actual malice” standard. But Fox has also been searching for evidence that could, in effect, prove the Dominion conspiracy theories weren’t really conspiracy theories. These questions have had a singular focus, this person said: to place Lachlan Murdoch in the room when the decisions about election coverage were being made. That business encompasses the most profitable parts of the Murdoch American media portfolio and is run directly by Rupert Murdoch, 91, who serves as chairman, and his elder son, Lachlan, the chief executive. Anchors and executives have been preparing for depositions and have been forced to hand over months of private emails and text messages to Dominion, which is hoping to prove that network employees knew that wild accusations of ballot rigging in the 2020 election were false. The case threatens a huge financial and reputational blow to Fox, by far the most powerful conservative media company in the country. In the weeks after President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, the Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claimed to have “tremendous evidence” that voter fraud was to blame.

Jeff Chen and Jim Horne collaborate on an enriching Sunday puzzle.

I had filled in “Marco Meara” at 26-Across, which represents a full buy-in to the Italian theme of this clue, as well as a total lack of knowledge and recall of MARK OMEARA, a golfer who’s been in at least a dozen crossword puzzles that I’ve solved and explained to readers. “Marco” meant that 18D, “It’s a drag,” solved to “toce” — not a word. (Qatar),” in which one’s vocation involves motion, as a DOG HANDLER: DOHA is shaded, and G is in the circle. Having read the puzzle’s title, “In the Money,” and then noticing some of these countries — Qatar, Rwanda — my heart sank a little. It happens, and the repercussion here is that I wound up with “caching” as my hidden word, which kinda makes sense! Jeff: Jim and I have had many fun collaborations before, but Sunday 140-word puzzles are a major-league step up from Triple-A 15x15s. The theme clues range from straightforward trivia to some really sweet puns, and each one is assigned a different country, which appears at the end of the clue in parentheses. Those circled letters, though, found me in a spot of trouble. That helped me greatly with trivia that I didn’t remotely know, although I still screwed up that “Golfer who won the 1998 Masters (Italy)” at 26-Across (as I’ll explain in a minute). It also helped me wise up to the two puns. Next, I got 100-Across, and it was there that the shaded letters made sense. Jim Horne is a musician and writer from Newcastle, Wash., who founded XWord Info and was the original writer of this little column from its 2008 inception until 2011. There are seven entries — 26-, 41-, 49-, 71-, 91-, 100- and 114-Across — that contain a series of shaded squares.

I had a few crossword clues and enough clue here to find out the answer, quit cold turkey. The shaded squares occur at the beginning of the guide, and the ...

This revealer, at 119-Across, “What are the letters of this puzzle circled in relation to the shaded surrounding squares?” Makes a great punch. I particularly liked the 114-Across, “The One Who Walks to Work? (Qatar),” where one’s career includes movement, as a dog handler: Doha is shaded, and G is in the circle. After reading the title of the puzzle, “In the Money,” and then noticing some of these countries – Qatar and Rwanda – my heart sank a little. It helped me a lot with trivialities that I didn’t even remotely know about, although I still failed my “98 Masters Tournament (Italy) golfer” in 26-Across (as I’ll explain in a minute). It also helped me understand the taurine. Topic guides range from straightforward trivia to some really nice puns, and each is assigned a different country, which appears at the end of the guide in parentheses. There are seven entries – 26-, 41-, 49-, 71-, 91-, 100- and 114- wide – containing a series of shaded squares.

A new intelligence assessment of the Al Qaeda threat was prepared after a drone strike killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the group's leader.

The Qaeda affiliate in East Africa killed three Americans at a U.S. base in Kenya in 2020. He added that the summary said “little about the longer-term prospects of Al Qaeda.” A U.N. report warned this spring that Al Qaeda had found “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. Last October, a top Pentagon official said Al Qaeda could be able to regroup in Afghanistan and attack the United States in one to two years. “Al Qaeda doesn’t need large training camps to be dangerous.” Doing so will give you access to the work of over 1,700 journalists whose mission is to cover the world and make sure you have accurate and impartial information on the most important topics of the day. The assessment was prepared after Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top leader, was killed in a C.I.A. drone strike in Kabul last month. We’d like to thank you for reading The Times and encourage you to support journalism like this by becoming a subscriber. I very much doubt they have turned to farming or accounting as their post-prison vocations.” Instead, it said, Al Qaeda will rely on, at least for now, an array of loyal affiliates outside the region to carry out potential terrorist plots against the West. But several counterterrorism analysts said the spy agencies’ judgments represented an optimistic snapshot of a complex and fast-moving terrorist landscape. But some outside counterterrorism specialists said it was overly optimistic.