America Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s, by Alistair Cooke (Knopf, 320 pp., $19.95)
It is surprising that Alistair Cooke had never until now got around to collecting a volume from his weekly dispatches to the (Manchester) Guardian. Most people who travel about are familiar with his BBC broadcasts, and almost everyone is familiar with the work he has done for television (most memorably, his America), and indeed continues to do on Masterpiece Theatre. The benevolent presence, ever so shrewd; a little fatalistic, because he knows that a story, in order to engross, must have complications, and that complications almost inevitably, sigh, have rough emotional edges.
Comments