Rachel Cooke (born 1969) is a British journalist and writer.

Cooke was born in Sheffield,^[1] and is the daughter of a university lecturer.^[2]

She went to school in Jaffa, Israel, until she was 11, before returning to Sheffield, and attended Oxford University.^[3][4][5]

Cooke began her career as a reporter for The Sunday Times. She has also written for the New Statesman, where she is television critic, and is a writer for The Observer newspaper. In the 'Lost Booker Prize' for 1970, announced in March 2010,^[6] Cooke was one of the three judges.^[7] Since 2010, Cooke has been reviewing graphic novels for The Guardian's "Graphic novel of the month".^[8]

Cooke's first book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties,^[9][10] was published in autumn 2013,^[11] Katharine Whitehorn wrote in The Observer that "this excellent book should go far towards setting the record straight" about women's increasing experience of having professional careers rather than being confined to a life as a housewife as accounts of the 1950s commonly assume.^[12] Amanda Craig wrote in The Independent that Cooke's "writing does not delve deep but is eloquent, concise, fair-minded, witty and elegant."^[13]

In 2006, Cooke was named Interviewer of the Year at the British Press Awards^[14] and Feature Writer of the Year at the What the Papers Say Awards.^[15] In 2010 she was named Writer of the Year at the PPA Awards for her interviews in Esquire.^[16]

Cooke is married to the film critic and novelist Anthony Quinn, and lives in Islington, London.^[17][18]

• Cooke, Rachel (2014). Her brilliant career: ten extraordinary women of the fifties. London: Virago Press. ISBN 9781844087419.