Trade pays tribute to 'brilliantly entertaining' Rachel Cooke following death aged 56

The trade has paid tribute to journalist and author Rachel Cooke who has died from cancer aged 56. 

A journalist for the Observer for 25 years, Cooke reviewed books, interviewed celebrities, politicians and writers, championed graphic novels, wrote a weekly TV column for the New Statesman and also published three books. 

The Virago Book of Friendship, published in 2024, was her most recent. Lennie Goodings, chair of Virago, said: “I remember, most poignantly now, that it was inspired by the death of her great friend, Carmen Callil, Virago’s founder. It will be published in America in December by Norton as The Book of Women’s Friendships. Her first book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties, was published by us too and she also collected her beguiling Observer pieces in Kitchen Person: Notes on Cooking & Eating , published by Juliet Annan [publishing director] at Weidenfeld.” 

Goodings added: “All three of her wonderful books reflect the passions and the wit of a great writer. She loved food, friends, women writers and iconoclastic thinkers. Her Brilliant Career challenged the received wisdom of the 1950s’ woman and gave us portraits of women who were ‘plucky and ambitious: they left the house and discovered the bliss of work’. She could have been describing herself. 

“Her journalism, her books and her love for her beloved husband, the writer Anthony Quinn, lit up the world for her – and for us. Witty and inspiring, her knowledge and sheer appetite for life was shared with millions of readers.”

Many others from across the trade paid tribute. Cooke’s agent of many years, Peter Straus of RCW, said “It was clear she had a fierce and uncompromising intelligence and wrote elegantly with wit and grace. I will miss her as a writer and as a friend.”

Author Sarah Walters wrote for the Observer: “Her work has that rare, wonderful quality of being both fiercely insightful and brilliantly entertaining.”  

Tim Adams, the editor of the Observer’s The New Review, wrote: “At a long lunch in April this year, just before her cancer diagnosis was confirmed, we talked about all the brilliant things she would write for the Observer under its new ownership. Her ideas filled page after page of my notebook. Even in the first month after her alarming test results came in, she insisted on writing 20,000-odd words on every subject under the sun: ‘Just to show what I could still do’.” 

Goodings added: “Her life was far too short, and I know she had more to give, to live and to write, but I am grateful for what she has left us: the memory of a big smile, extraordinary books and an urging to embrace life.”

A memorial service for Cooke will be held in 2026, with details in due course.