Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
Letters from America Seasonal Letters
- Narrated by: Alistair Cooke
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
Letters from America Seasonal Letters
Buy Now for £7.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
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. Letters from America are introduced and linked by the BBC's Justin Webb, who sets them in their historical context and adds his own observations.
Critic reviews
"Cooke's debonaire, transatlantic tones are unmistakable." (FT Magazine)