A new collection of essays from the late Alistair Cooke, Reporting America, is released this week just as the A Masterpiece Special The Unseen Alistair Cooke will be broadcast nationally on PBS this Sunday, November 23. Publishers Weekly weighs in on the new book, which features an introduction by Cooke's daughter Susan Cooke Kittredge: "A fitting tribute to Cooke and his accounts of postwar America, this collection of his dispatches ranging from the soldiers of WWII coming home in 1946 to the threat of Saddam in 2004 coincides with what would have been Cooke’s 100th birthday (he died in 2004). Cooke, an Englishman who adopted America as his home, captured the country’s historic moments (Korea, the civil rights movement, the moon landing, Watergate), but also traveled extensively and gave voice to the man in the street and outside of the hotbeds of power. Best known as the host of television’s Masterpiece Theater and the voice of radio’s Letter from America, Cooke was both a force and a media darling. Photos accompany his “letters” (he wrote nearly 3,000 of them), and his daughter writes a touching introduction and commentaries. A personal take on a tumultuous time, this book will especially appeal to those who were there."
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Alistair Cooke's REPORTING AMERICA in Publishers Weekly
A new collection of essays from the late Alistair Cooke, Reporting America, is released this week just as the A Masterpiece Special The Unseen Alistair Cooke will be broadcast nationally on PBS this Sunday, November 23. Publishers Weekly weighs in on the new book, which features an introduction by Cooke's daughter Susan Cooke Kittredge: "A fitting tribute to Cooke and his accounts of postwar America, this collection of his dispatches ranging from the soldiers of WWII coming home in 1946 to the threat of Saddam in 2004 coincides with what would have been Cooke’s 100th birthday (he died in 2004). Cooke, an Englishman who adopted America as his home, captured the country’s historic moments (Korea, the civil rights movement, the moon landing, Watergate), but also traveled extensively and gave voice to the man in the street and outside of the hotbeds of power. Best known as the host of television’s Masterpiece Theater and the voice of radio’s Letter from America, Cooke was both a force and a media darling. Photos accompany his “letters” (he wrote nearly 3,000 of them), and his daughter writes a touching introduction and commentaries. A personal take on a tumultuous time, this book will especially appeal to those who were there."
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My little Sony shortwave radio always had one button set to the BBC World Service. When I was lucky I would get to hear Alistair Cooke's "Letter from America" for that week. This is the man for whom the word "erudite" was invented. In 15 minutes he would encapsulate a key issue, trend, or feeling from the week's events, then explain it, then relate it to a bigger picture. If you listened week by week you would learn to understand what it is like here in the US and how Americans--in all our diversity--see things. I wish the Voice of America were a tenth as good at this. No, I haven't read the book, but I can imagine that it is a wonderful read.
--L., Los Angeles
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