Best Selling Books by Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke''s Six Men is a highly personal account of six remarkable men who made a deep impression on twentieth century history. During his extraordinary broadcasting career of over sixty years Alistair Cooke encountered many legendary figures, in the varied worlds of journalism, politics, public life, sport and entertainment. Here are candid portraits of the lovable yet unreliable Charlie Chaplin, who, when asked to be Cooke''s best man, mysteriously vanished on the wedding day; the charming yet childlike ''golden boy'' Edward VIII; Cooke''s mentor, the flawed contrarian and satirist H.L. Mencken; Humphrey Bogart, revealing the complex and private man behind the tough-guy image; the larger-than-life liberal politician Adlai Stevenson; and the heroic social reformer and philosopher Bertrand Russell. Each superbly realized description is a masterpiece of observation, warmth and humour, recalling a golden age of ''great men''. ''A rare delight ... he has that priceless gift of the gods, irresistible readability'' Spectator ''There is never going to be anyone else like Cooke, a chronicler of amazing times'' Daily Telegraph ''Six Men is the journalist''s memoir par excellence'' Newsweek ''The quintessential Alistair Cooke'' Economist Alistair Cooke (1908-2004) enjoyed an extraordinary life in print, radio and television. The Guardian''s Senior Correspondent in New York for twenty-five years and the host of groundbreaking cultural programmes on American television and of the BBC series America, Cooke was, however, best known both at home and abroad for his weekly BBC broadcast Letter from America, which reported on fifty-eight years of US life, was heard over five continents and totalled 2,869 broadcasts before his retirement in February 2004, far and away the longest-running radio series in broadcasting history.

Breve sendt til BBC''s lyttere

A new edition of Alistair Cooke''s classic work, which has sold more than 2 million copies. Full of Cooke''s signature erudition, this is an incisive and illuminating history of the United States. Republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the classic BBC series and this title''s first publication.

“There is never going to be anyone else like Cooke, a chronicler of amazing times.” —The Daily Telegraph As the voice of the BBC’s Letter from America for close to six decades, Alistair Cooke addressed several millions of listeners on five continents. They tuned in every Friday evening or Sunday morning to listen to his erudite and entertaining reports on life in the United States. According to Lord Hill of Luton, chairman of the BBC, Cooke had “a virtuosity approaching genius in talking about America in human terms.” This second collection of Cooke’s personally selected letters covers tumultuous events in American history such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. His analysis of the origins of the conflict in Vietnam is clear eyed and compelling, and in three thoughtful and incisive essays—on Brown v. Board of Education, the struggle to integrate the Deep South, and the riots in Watts—Cooke identifies the changing racial attitudes that defined the era. He reflects on the rise of drug use among college students and offers a paean to the beauty of Golden Gate Park. With characteristically incisive portraits of political and cultural figures such as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Frost, H. L. Mencken, Charles Lindbergh, and John Glenn, Talk About America: 1951–1968 is rich with humor, compassion, and commitment. In this superb overview of an astonishing era in America’s twentieth century, Alistair Cooke is at the top of his game.

A New York Times bestseller: This portrait of the United States at the beginning of World War II is “an unexpected and welcome discovery in a time capsule” (The Washington Post). In nearly three thousand BBC broadcasts over fifty-eight years, Alistair Cooke reported on America, illuminating our country for a global audience. Shortly before he passed away, a long-forgotten manuscript resurfaced in a closet in his New York apartment. It was a travelogue of America during the early days of World War II that had sat there for sixty years. Published to stellar reviews, Cooke’s The American Home Front is a “valentine to his adopted country by someone who loved it as well as anyone and knew it better than most” (The Plain Dealer). A portrait frozen in time, the book offers a charming look at the era as it journeys through small towns, big cities, and the American landscape as they once were. The American Home Front is also a brilliant piece of reportage, a historical gem that “affirms Cooke’s enduring place as a great twentieth-century reporter” (American Heritage). “An interesting eyewitness record . . . It recalls transcontinental travel in the pre-interstate highway era, and with greater depth, social problems that Cooke detected beneath the win-the-war exhortations he encountered from coast to coast.” —Booklist

Three volumes of BBC broadcasts about the US from the New York Times–bestselling author, host of Masterpiece Theater, and “international treasure” (Booklist). In addition to his most visible presence as the host of PBS’s Masterpiece Theater for over two decades, British-born Alistair Cooke entertained and informed millions of listeners around the globe with his weekly BBC radio program, Letters from America, for over half a century. An outstanding observer of the American scene, he became one of the world’s best-loved broadcasters. The three works in this collection gather together his most memorable insights into American history and culture. “Reading [Cooke] is like spending an evening with him: you may have heard it all before, but never told with such grace and sparkle” (The New York Times Book Review). Letters from America: Beginning with his first letter in 1946, a powerful description of American GIs returning home, and ending with his last broadcast in February 2004, reflecting on the presidential campaign, this comprehensive collection displays Cooke’s “virtuosity approaching genius in talking about America in human terms” (Lord Hill of Luton, chairman of the BBC). Highlights include an eyewitness account of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, a moving evocation of 9/11, personal reflections on presidents, and warm remembrances of celebrity friends and cultural icons. “In this tightly edited collection . . . Cooke captures the expanding soul of a nation and people.” —Publishers Weekly Talk About America: Personally selected by Cooke, these dispatches cover a tumultuous time in American history, including the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. Along with cogent commentary, Cooke offers characteristically incisive portraits of political and cultural figures such as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert Frost, H. L. Mencken, Charles Lindbergh, and John Glenn. “There is great political penetration here, and there are flashes on every page of wit, humanity, and wisdom.” —The New York Times The Americans: Always entertaining, provocative, and enlightening, the “best storyteller in America” reports on an extraordinarily diverse range of topics, from Vietnam, Watergate, and the constitutional definition of free speech to the jogging craze and the pleasures of a family Christmas in Vermont (James Reston). In this New York Times bestseller, Cooke eulogizes Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, pays an affectionate and moving tribute to Duke Ellington, and treats readers to a night at the opera with Jimmy Carter. “One of the most gifted and urbane essayists of the century.” —The Spectator

“[Cooke is] one of the most gifted and urbane essayists of the century, a supreme master.” —The Spectator As the voice of the BBC’s Letter from America for close to six decades, Alistair Cooke addressed several millions of listeners on five continents. They tuned in every Friday evening or Sunday morning to listen to his erudite and entertaining reports on life in the United States. According to Lord Hill of Luton, chairman of the BBC, Cooke had “a virtuosity approaching genius in talking about America in human terms.” Letters from America: 1946–1951 contains highlights from the first five years of Alistair Cooke’s legendary BBC radio program, years when listeners were eager to put the horrors of World War II behind them. Cooke’s lively and illuminating dispatches from New York perfectly capture the spirit of the times. From the significance of Labor Day to reflections on the changing seasons to the heroic Long Island duck that saved two people from drowning, little escapes the broadcaster’s sharp reportorial eye and affable wit. This collection includes Cooke’s historical tour of Washington, DC, and his thoughts on why New York is such a singular city, and covers more serious topics such as the Soviet threat and the anxieties of the atomic age. Always captivating, Cooke treats the reader to profiles of Joe Louis and Will Rogers and reflections on Damon Runyon’s America, and concludes with a “Letter to an Intending Immigrant.” Letters from America: 1946–1951, the first volume of Cooke’s iconic broadcasts, offers a captivating journey through culture, history, and politics and is a classic of twentieth-century journalism.

Masterful essays by one of the most distinctive voices in broadcast journalism In his Letter from America reports for the BBC and as the host of PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre, Alistair Cooke addressed millions of people all over the world every week. The fourteen essays collected here, each of which was first delivered as a speech, showcase the wit, charm, and eloquence of Cooke’s voice in more intimate, but no less intimidating, settings. In exclusive forums as varied as the Mayo Clinic and a conference of British and American scholars investigating the “state of the language,” Cooke eagerly challenges expert opinions and delightfully skewers the pretensions of the powerful. Addressing the House of Representatives on the bicentennial of the Continental Congress, he warns against the dangers of sentimentalizing history and wryly notes that “practically every man who signed the Declaration of Independence is at this moment being measured for a halo or, at worst a T-shirt.” At the Royal College of Surgeons in London, he compares his listeners to armed robbers and to the disreputable half of that infamous duo Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “If I could be benevolent dictator of the United States for a year,” he informs the National Trust for Historic Preservation, “I should provide several million jobs for the wrecking industry.” No one played the devil’s advocate with as much grace and good humor as did Alistair Cooke. The Patient Has the Floor is an eminently quotable testament to his extraordinary talents as a journalist, scholar, and public speaker.

Over the course of his distinguished career as a foreign correspondent, which spans more than sixty years, Alistair Cooke has known, interviewed, or reported on literally hundreds of the most influential men and women of the twentieth century. Here he has collected his memories of more than a score of them: they include actors and generals, statesmen and eccentrics, a poet, a jazzman, an intensely scholarly woman and a casually funny one, an architect, a publisher, and several politicians--all of whom, in Cooke''s view, have left the world a better or more interesting place. Book jacket.

From Duke Ellington to Churchill Downs, championship golf to Greta Garbo, Alistair Cooke reports on the popular sports and entertainments he loved the most This delightful anthology, drawn from Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America BBC broadcasts as well as his reporting for the Guardian, showcases the legendary journalist’s wide range of sporting pleasures, which include golf, tennis, baseball, and horse racing, and records memorable fun he had with favorite movies, theater productions, and jazz performances. Included here are perceptive portraits of sports personalities such as Gabriela Sabatini, Arnold Palmer, and Sugar Ray Robinson, whom Cooke regarded as the best fighter in the history of boxing. “A Mountain Comes to Muhammad” captures Muhammad Ali in victory; “Come-Uppance for the ‘Onliest Champion’ ” portrays him in defeat. A “Revised (Soviet) History of Baseball” humorously details Russian misconceptions about America’s pastime, a.k.a. beizbol. In “The Road to Churchill Downs,” Cooke captures the sights and sounds of Kentucky’s crown jewel and delights in the joy that his young daughter, Susan, who appears with her father on the cover of this edition, takes in the sport of kings. Sharing the spotlight are celebrities of the Hollywood variety, including Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Groucho Marx, and Charlie Chaplin. Filled with Cooke’s infectious enthusiasm for fun and games of wide variety, the lighter side of the legendary journalist’s output will be enjoyed by devotees of popular culture.

A wonderful entertainment that reflects Alistair Cooke’s love affair with cinema, from his early days as a film critic to his iconic role as the host of Masterpiece Theatre Humphrey Bogart, Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich, and Marilyn Monroe are just a few of the stars profiled, along with many directors, in this sparkling and comprehensive collection of reviews, interviews, and essays. Alistair Cooke’s first radio talk at the BBC was in October 1934, and the subject was cinema. He had begun reviewing films in the 1920s as a Cambridge undergraduate. This anthology of his best film criticism and essays includes his many favorite subjects. In “The Symbol Called Garbo,” Cooke reveals the woman behind the enigmatic screen goddess. James Cagney is identified as “one of the few technically perfect actors,” while Charlie Chaplin was “the funniest clown alive.” Shirley Temple’s multi-million-dollar appeal is explained, as is the subtlety underpinning the slapstick humor of the Marx Brothers. Directors such as Frank Capra, Fritz Lang, and Cecil B. DeMille meet with Cooke’s high praise, while Alfred Hitchcock evokes a more complicated reaction. Full of glamorous stars, provocative opinions, and fond memories, Alistair Cooke at the Movies is a very personal and captivating guide to the golden age of Hollywood and beyond.

Legendary journalist and beloved TV host Alistair Cooke shares his life-long passion for golf in this stunning collection of his best writing on the sport he loved most. On a fateful day in 1964, Alistair Cooke was dragged into Van Cortland Park in New York City to play his first game of golf. He was immediately hooked, and golf became his greatest passion, even though he called it “a method of self-torture, disguised as a game.” No one has written more brilliantly or more lovingly about golf than he does here in this collection. Golf gathers together for the first time the best of Cooke’s pieces on what he called “the marvelous mania” and showcases the incomparable wit and mischievous charm that made Cooke one of the greatest journalists and broadcasters of the twentieth century. Languish in his prose as he describes Arnold Palmer playing in 102-degree heat in San Antonio, dapper Gary Player winning the US Open at Creve Coeur, Missouri, and Jack Nicklaus playing—and winning—almost everywhere. This is a book no golfer—pro or amateur—should be without.

America Observed provides, for the first time, a collection of Alistair Cooke''s memorable dispatches to The Guardian written between 1946 and 1972, the year that he retired as the paper''s chief American correspondent.

Although Alistair Cooke called golf ''a method of self-torture, disguised as a game'', from the first time he swung a club at the age of fifty-five, he was hooked for the rest of his life. This book brings together the best of Cooke''s writings about his greatest sporting passion, which display the incomparable wit, the unexpected insights, the mischievous charm, the elegance and enchantment which made him famous for over sixty years as a broadcaster. Whether he is writing about the pleasures of a bout in the snow, how the ''senior golfer'' secretly disguises their ageing swing, Arnold Palmer playing in 102-degree heat in San Antonio, dapper Gary Player winning the U.S. Open at Creve Coeur, Missouri, or Jack Nicklaus playing - and winning - almost anywhere, (not to mention a surprising and persistent tendresse for Raquel Welch), Alistair Cooke on his favourite sport is a rare and constant pleasure.

The story of Whittaker Chambers, HUAC, and the case that defined the McCarthy era, as reported by one of the twentieth century’s most respected journalists. In August 1948, a former Communist Party member named Whittaker Chambers testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee that a secret cell of Communists had infiltrated Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. Chief among the conspirators, according to Chambers, was Alger Hiss, a former government attorney and State Department official who had taken part in the Yalta Conference and been instrumental in the creation of the United Nations. Hiss’s categorical denial of the charges, which led Chambers to produce evidence linking both men to Soviet espionage, quickly escalated into one of the most divisive episodes in American history and ignited the widespread fear and paranoia of the McCarthy era. As the US correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Alistair Cooke reported extensively on the Hiss affair. In an atmosphere that he memorably compares to that of a seventeenth-century religious war, Cooke maintained a clear head and his signature intellectual rigor. A Generation on Trial, which begins with a brilliantly succinct summary of the case—“We are about to look at the trials of a man who was judged in one decade for what he was said to have done in another”—is both a fascinating historical document and a stirring example of journalistic integrity.

For over half a century, Alistair Cooke entertained and informed millions of listeners around the world in his weekly BBC radio program Letter from America. An outstanding observer of the American scene, he became one of the world’s best-loved broadcasters, and a foreigner who helped Americans better understand themselves. Here, in print for the first time, is a collection of Cooke’s finest reports that celebrates the inimitable style of this wise and avuncular reporter. Beginning with his first letter in 1946, a powerful description of American GIs returning home, and ending with his last broadcast in February 2004, in which he expressed his views on the United States presidential campaign, the collection captures Cooke’s unique voice and gift for telling stories. Gathered in this volume are encounters with the many presidents Cooke knew, from Roosevelt to Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush, both Senior and Junior. His friends are warmly recollected–among them Leonard Bernstein, Philip Larkin, Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, and Katharine Hepburn. We observe a variety of political landmarks–the Vietnam War, Watergate, Cooke’s remarkable eyewitness account of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, through to the scandals that surrounded Clinton and the conflict in Iraq. His moving evocation of the events of September 11 and its aftermath remains essential reading, while his recollections of holidays and sporting events remind us of Cooke’s delight in the pleasures of everyday life. Imbued with Alistair Cooke’s good humor, elegance, and understanding, Letter from America, 1946—2004 is a captivating insight into the heart of a nation and a fitting tribute to the man who was for so many the most reassuring voice of our times.

In May 2005 Penguin will publish 70 unique titles to celebrate the company''s 70th birthday. The titles in the Pocket Penguins series are emblematic of the renowned breadth of quality of the Penguin list and will hark back to Penguin founder Allen Lane''s vision of good books for all''. radio dispatch Letter from America entertained listeners around the globe from 1946 until his death in 2004. Penguin have proudly published editions of Cooke''s Letters since 1979, and those in Letters from Four Seasons have been specially selected along the theme of the changing seasons to show the range, intimacy and elegance of his inimitable style.

Alistair Cooke''s essays about the history, personalities and literary works that shaped the programs that have appeared on Masterpiece Theatre.

"What man could better have evaluated the military mind of Winston Churchill than the man who shared with him the momentous decisions of war - Dwight D. Eisenhower. In this conversational reminiscence, General Eisenhower fondly recalls his phenomenal friend and irascible fighting companion. The result is a unique segment of living history, revealing the Prime Minister in the role he particularly cherished, the military one."--Book Jacket.

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Three stories given originally as broadcasts on the Letter from America weekly talks on three successive Christmas eves.

When Alistair Cooke retired in March 2004 and then died a few weeks later, he was acclaimed by many as one of the greatest broadcasters of all time. His Letters from America, which began in 1946 and continued uninterrupted every week until early 2004, kept the world in touch with what was happening in Cooke''s wry, liberal and humane style. This selection, made largely by Cooke himself and supplemented by his literary executor, gives us the very best of these legendary broadcasts. Over half have never appeared in print before. It is a remarkable portrait of a continent - and a man.