Books Briefing: Ann Goldstein, translator of Elena Ferrante

August 25, 2020

Ann Goldstein, the translator who worked with Elena Ferrante again for her latest book, “The Lying Life of Adults.”September Dawn Bottoms/The New York Times

Hi readers,

Here’s your weekly catch-up on everything you need to know going on in the book world.

The news:

If you love Elena Ferrante’s novels and read them in English, you also love the work of Ann Goldstein, her highly acclaimed translator. They worked together again for Ferrante’s latest book, “The Lying Life of Adults,” due out next month. As Goldstein told us about her work translating: “I don’t think it’s necessary to have an affinity for the writer, but with Ferrante, I do.”
What’s a historian doing speaking at a political convention? Remarks by Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, at the Democratic National Convention last week sprang from his long friendship with Joe Biden and a desire to add historical context to the moment. “The request was, define the soul of America, and do it quick,” he said.
Black food writers are landing more cookbook deals, but authors who have had negative experiences say the industry’s problems go further than advances and paychecks.
Bruce Pascoe’s book “Dark Emu” inspired a reconsideration of Australian history. Now he hopes to use his writing to revive Aboriginal community.
Mercedes Barcha, Gabriel García Márquez’s wife and muse, died on Aug. 15 at age 87. “Mercedes permeates all my books,” García Márquez once said. “There’s traces of her everywhere.”
Gail Sheehy, the journalist and chronicler of cultural transformations who wrote “Passages” and many other books, has died at 83.
Fiction out today: “Sisters,” by Daisy Johnson; “The Last Great Road Bum,” by Héctor Tobar.
Nonfiction out today: “The Presidents vs. the Press,” by Harold Holzer; “El Jefe,” by Alan Feuer; “The Saddest Words,” by Michael Gorra; “Vesper Flights,” by Helen Macdonald; “Hoax,” by Brian Stelter; “His Truth Is Marching On,” by Jon Meacham.

The critics:

Dwight Garner reviews two new books about Odetta, the powerful singer whose career was intertwined with the civil rights movement: “Odetta,” a biography by Ian Zack, and “One Grain of Sand,” an examination of the album of the same name, by Matthew Frye Jacobson.
Parul Sehgal reviews Helen Macdonald’s essay collection, “Vesper Flights,” which Sehgal says “muddies any facile ideas about nature and the human, and prods at how we pleat our prejudices, politics and desires into our notions of the animal world.”

That’s all for now. Please stay in touch and let me know what you think — whether it’s about this newsletter, our reviews, our podcast, our literary calendar, our Instagram or what you’re reading. We on the Books desk read all of it, and I’ll make every effort to write back. You can reach me at books@nytimes.com.

All my best,

Joumana Khatib

Books at The New York Times

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