Letters From America: Seasonal Letters

This selection contains eight of Alistair Cooke's Christmas and New Year Letters from America, broadcast in December and January over the five decades of his career and covering a range of festive topics from the light-hearted to the sombre. 
 
Starting with his December 2001 Letter - broadcast in the wake of 9/11 - he remembers introducing Leonard Bernstein to Handel's 'Messiah', muses on the creation of A Christmas Carol and shares his memories of two friends who died in 1977, Groucho Marx and Bing Crosby. 
 
Here, too, are Cooke's reflections on Christmas in Vermont, the early days of television in the USA, cigarette advertising and sport, the Millennium Bug and the Nixon family's first days in the White House. The Letters are introduced and linked by the BBC's Justin Webb, who sets them in their historical context and adds his own observations. 
 
'Cooke's debonaire, transatlantic tones are unmistakable...' - FT Magazine.

Letters From America: The Elections

Alistair Cooke was a radio legend, entertaining millions of listeners for over fifty years in his weekly Letter from America. It was the longest-running one-man series in radio history, and every show was a virtuoso performance. Wise and witty, informed yet informal, Cooke was the doyen of foreign correspondents. 
 
To correspond with the 2008 election, and the centenary of Alistair Cooke's birth, here are five Letters about previous presidents and their elections over the past sixty years, in which Cooke - one of the world's most famous letter writers and radio's greatest observer - reflects on American life and politics. 
 
Starting with Truman's surprise victory in 1948 and concluding with another surprise win, that of George W. Bush in 2000 - he comments on opinion polls, democracy, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, Bill Clinton's fashion sense and what Clinton's symbolic rejection of 'the blue blazer' meant to the American political system. In each Letter, his unique style of expression and analysis shines through. 
 
The Letters are introduced by the BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, who sets them in their historical context and reflects on what has changed since Cooke's original broadcasts and what has not. 
 
'Cooke's debonaire, transatlantic tones are unmistakable...' - FT Magazine.

Alistair Cooke was a radio legend, entertaining millions of listeners for over fifty years in his weekly Letter from America. It was the longest-running one-man series in radio history, and every show was a virtuoso performance. Wise and witty, informed yet informal, Cooke was the doyen of foreign correspondents. 
 
To correspond with the 2008 election, and the centenary of Alistair Cooke's birth, here are five Letters about previous presidents and their elections over the past sixty years, in which Cooke - one of the world's most famous letter writers and radio's greatest observer - reflects on American life and politics. 
 
Starting with Truman's surprise victory in 1948 and concluding with another surprise win, that of George W. Bush in 2000 - he comments on opinion polls, democracy, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, Bill Clinton's fashion sense and what Clinton's symbolic rejection of 'the blue blazer' meant to the American political system. In each Letter, his unique style of expression and analysis shines through. 
 
The Letters are introduced by the BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, who sets them in their historical context and reflects on what has changed since Cooke's original broadcasts and what has not. 
 
'Cooke's debonaire, transatlantic tones are unmistakable...' - FT Magazine.

With additional narration by BBC American correspondent Matt Frei

Letter from America: The Essential Letters 1936 - 2004

All six volumes of 'The Essential Letters from America', brought together for the first time in this definitive chronological collection of Alistair Cooke's finest broadcasts

Alistair Cooke enjoyed an extraordinary life in print, radio and television. Born in Manchester in 1908 and educated at the universities of Cambridge, Yale and Harvard, he was 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. He was 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.

All six volumes of 'The Essential Letters from America', brought together for the first time in this definitive chronological collection of Alistair Cooke's finest broadcasts 
 
Alistair Cooke was the doyen of foreign correspondents and a radio legend, entertaining millions of listeners for over fifty years in his weekly 'Letter from America'. It was the longest-running show in radio history, and every show was a virtuoso performance. 
 
In this selection of his best and most memorable Letters, Cooke reports on landmark political events from Presidential elections to Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral and the assassination of JFK. He reflects on the war in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, the Monica Lewinsky affair, the Watts and Rodney King race riots in LA in 1965 and 1992, the Gulf War and the terrible events of 9/11. 
 
Here are Cooke's observations on the Challenger space shuttle explosion, Black Monday, the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake of 1989 and - in his final Letter - President Bush's difficulties with the situation in Iraq. But there are also Letters in a more personal vein, as Cooke reflects on topics close to his heart such as sport (the Ali v. Liston fight, baseball star Joe DiMaggio and golfer Bobby Jones) and music (pianist William Kapell, jazz singer Louis Armstrong and composer Irving Berlin). 
 
The Letters are set in their historical context with a specially commissioned script narrated by award-winning broadcast journalist Matt Frei. This collection also includes a bonus programme, 'Remembering Alistair Cooke'.

Alistair Cooke's America

Alistair Cooke's classic "personal history" of America, telling the story of the USA from the Mayflower to Pearl Harbour.

For years legendary broadcaster Alistair Cooke brought America to the rest of the world with incomparable wit and wisdom. This is his classic "personal history" of America, guiding us through centuries of changing life in the USA. Beginning with his own arrival in America as a graduate in the 1930s, Alistair Cooke discusses the explorers who put their new-found land on the map, the pioneers who tamed the Wild West, the soldiers who fought for independence and the tycoons who built fortunes. From the Mayflower to the gold rush, the jazz age to Pearl Harbour, with figures as varied as Buffalo Bill, John D. Rockefeller and Martin Luther King, here is the defining portrait of America.

Alistair Cooke's American Journey Life On The Home Front In The Second World War

Bringing the United States during World War II dramatically to life, this title presents an introduction to the challenges that faced America at the start of a war long thought avoidable. 
©2006 The Estate of Alistair Cooke (P)2007 BBC Audiobooks Ltd

At The BBC

Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke looks back on a rich and varied life, one which has taken him across the ocean but never far away from the BBC. 
 
Drawing on archive recordings, this selection includes interviews from radio and television, Cooke's Letter From America, and a speech made to the Royal Television Society at New York's Cosmopolitan Club. 
 
It charts the journalist's career from his first trip to America as a young Cambridge graduate to the establishment of the enormously successful Letter From America, originally scheduled for 13 weeks but still running today. 
 
Alistair Cooke's biographer, Nick Clarke, introduces this in-depth retrospective which examines the heroes, hobbies, and experiences of one of the greatest names in broadcasting.

Cooke had a matchless ability to convey the feelings of the American people at times of great historical importance. Accustomed to hearing these pieces rather than reading them, one is also struck by the quality of Cooke's writing. His command of language and sharp eye for physical description shine in this collection as do his sense of humour and deep emotional sensitivity. 
 
In its perspective on the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, this is as insightful a history book as you are likely to find. Much more than that, it is a fitting record of an erudite, much loved man.

No one else succeeded in explaining to the English-speaking world ... the idiosyncrasies of a country at once so familiar, and yet so utterly foreign

There is never going to be anyone else like Cooke, a chronicler of amazing times

The range of Cooke's experiences was awesome but he always had the personal touch

1946-2004

When Alistair Cooke retired in February 2004 he was acclaimed as one of the greatest broadcasters of all time. His Letter from America radio series, which began in 1946 and continued every week for fifty-eight years until his retirement, kept the world in touch with what was happening in America. Cooke's wry, humane and liberal style both informed and entertained his audience. The selection here, made largely by Cooke himself and supplemented by his literary executor, gives us the very best of these legendary broadcasts. It covers key moments from the assassination of Kennedy through to the Vietnam War and Watergate to 9/11, the Iraq War and anticipates the 2004 elections. It includes portraits of the great and the good from Charlie Chaplin to Martin Luther King, Jr, and topics as varied as civil rights, golf, jazz and the changing colours of a New England fall. Each Letter contributes to a captivating portrait of a nation - and of a man.

Letter from America

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Praise for Letter from America

Cooke had a matchless ability to convey the feelings of the American people at times of great historical importance. Accustomed to hearing these pieces rather than reading them, one is also struck by the quality of ...

No one else succeeded in explaining to the English-speaking world ... the idiosyncrasies of a country at once so familiar, and yet so utterly foreign

There is never going to be anyone else like Cooke, a chronicler of amazing times

Cooke had a matchless ability to convey the feelings of the American people at times of great historical importance. Accustomed to hearing these pieces rather than reading them, one is also struck by the quality of ...

No one else succeeded in explaining to the English-speaking world ... the idiosyncrasies of a country at once so familiar, and yet so utterly foreign

There is never going to be anyone else like Cooke, a chronicler of amazing times

Cooke had a matchless ability to convey the feelings of the American people at times of great historical importance. Accustomed to hearing these pieces rather than reading them, one is also struck by the quality of ...

No one else succeeded in explaining to the English-speaking world ... the idiosyncrasies of a country at once so familiar, and yet so utterly foreign

There is never going to be anyone else like Cooke, a chronicler of amazing times

Books by Alistair Cooke

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