Letters from America Seasonal Letters
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $13.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Alistair Cooke
-
Written by:
-
Alistair Cooke
About this listen
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.
©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution LtdWhat the critics say
"Cooke's debonaire, transatlantic tones are unmistakable." (FT Magazine)