Best Selling Books by Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke, then a Washington correspondent for the Guardian, recognized a great story to be told in investigating at first hand the effects of the Second World War on America and the daily lives of Americans as they adjusted to radically new circumstances. Within weeks of the Pearl Harbor attack, Cooke set off with a reporter’s zeal on a circuit of the entire country to see what the war had done to people. He talked to everyone he encountered on his extensive trip, from miners to lumberjacks, to war-profiteers, to day-laborers, to local politicians – even the unfortunate Japanese-Americans who had been rapidly interned in stark, desert camps. This unique travelogue celebrates an important American character and the indomitable spirit of a nation that was to inspire Cooke’s reports and broadcasts for some sixty years.

Alistair Cooke was the greatest of all twentieth century reporters of life in America to the rest of the world. Published to celebrate the centenary of his birth, this book presents the cream of his writings on the events that shaped modern American history, from the end of the Second World War through to the assassination of John Kennedy and of Bobby Kennedy (Cooke was actually present), the moon landings and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Almost all the material is previously unpublished in book form - transcripts of his legendary Letters from America, long-forgotten reports in the Guardian (whose correspondent in New York he was for 25 years) and other freshly discovered writings. The book will be illustrated throughout in full colour with iconic photographs of the events Cooke is describing.

Alistair Cooke, whom many knew as the former host of "Masterpiece Theatre," was also one of the world''s best journalists. Here he brings his unique blend of wit, curiosity, and insight to bear on the world of sports and entertainment. He writes with equal verve on golf (his favorite sport), tennis, boxing, sailing, and horse racing. And his selections on the movies, jazz, and the theater are just as delightful. Whether writing on George Gershwin or Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali or Groucho Marx, Charlie Chaplin or Jack Nicklaus, Duke Ellington or Sugar Ray Robinson, the Masters golf tournament or Wimbledon, the Kentucky Derby or "How the Russians Invented Baseball," Alistair Cooke is as charming as he is informative.

Cooke presented the longest running one-man show in radio history called ''Letter from America. This book, the first of two volumes, describes American GIs returning home in 1946 and highlights a variety of political achievements and disasters.

Alistair Cooke''s collected memories of those whom he believes have left the world a better and more interesting place.

Material pertaining to a special issue of Esquire in 1983 celebrating the magazine''s fiftieth anniversary, for which the editors commissioned fifty essays by leading American authors on "The Fifty Who Made a Difference," notable Americans active in the years since Esquire''s founding in 1933. Notes, correspondence, and drafts of essays from 21 of the fifty authors (or their representatives), in communication with Lee Eisenberg and Rust Hills (Esquire literary editor). Some miscellaneous material related to other issues, particularly from Truman Capote and Irwin Shaw, dates from as early as 1976 and as late as 1984.