Penguin Press founder Ann Godoff, a powerhouse editor of bestsellers and prize winners, dies at 76

By HILLEL ITALIE, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Ann Godoff, a leading book publisher for more than 30 years with an eye for timely and timeless works from “Alexander Hamilton” and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” to current bestsellers by Gisèle Pelicot and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, has died. She was 76.

Godoff died of cancer Tuesday in Albany, New York, according to a statement from Penguin Press, which she had founded in 2003.

“Ann’s impact on American book culture over the past four decades is incalculable,” Penguin Press publisher Scott Moyers said in a statement. “An editor of immense range in fiction, nonfiction and poetry, Ann shepherded into print innumerable New York Times bestsellers, multiple winners of every major award, and works that have appeared on all manner of best books lists — of the year, the decade, and the century.”

A onetime NYU film student who studied under then-faculty member Martin Scorsese, sold cars and assisted on Dr. Joyce Brothers’ television show, Godoff was a late bloomer who didn’t begin her publishing career until her early 30s and soon revealed uncommon gifts for spotting and cultivating talent...