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4 days ago | 
nytimes.com | Ocean Vuong
FictionA college dropout becomes caretaker to a Lithuanian widow in Ocean Vuong's florid new novel, which seeks to find the dignity in dead-end jobs. After several popular books of poetry and one novel, Ocean Vuong's new book is "The Emperor of Gladness." Credit... Gioncarlo Valentine FictionA college dropout becomes caretaker to a Lithuanian widow in Ocean Vuong's florid new novel, which seeks to find the dignity in dead-end jobs.
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2 weeks ago | 
news.lee.net | Ocean Vuong |Sarah Ruhl |Kent Nerburn |Anthony Horowitz
May is packed with potentially huge books, in a way we’d expect peak fall to be. That peak didn’t materialize last autumn because publishers were holding off on releasing promising titles in the heat of the election cycle. Apparently, they saved them for May. We’re getting some books we’d expect. That includes a novel from Stephen King, who often releases a book in May (the new one is “Never Flinch,” featuring Holly Gibney from “Mr. Mercedes”).
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3 weeks ago | 
waterstones.com | I Love You |Ocean Vuong |Sarah Moss |Edward St Aubyn
Posted on 24th April 2025 by Mark Skinner From literary fiction to compelling crime and cracking cookery to the latest history titles, explore the delights on offer this May.
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3 weeks ago | 
newyorker.com | Ocean Vuong
Before becoming a writer, I went to college to study international marketing. I had succumbed, like many immigrant children, to the guilt-ridden obligation to “make a living” before pursuing my own vocations. I lasted all of three weeks before dropping out to couch surf and read poems in East Village bars, schlumping my way into a literary life, whatever that meant.
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2 months ago | 
publishersweekly.com | Mathias Enard |André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong
Mathias Énard, trans. from the French by Charlotte Mandell. New Directions, $16.95 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-8112-3901-1This brilliant interlocking diptych from Énard (Compass) begins with a soldier emerging from a battlefield into a nightmarish future. What has become of the world is a mystery, as is the identity of this haunted survivor.
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2 months ago | 
publishersweekly.com | André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong |Richard Bausch
Rob Franklin. Summit, $28.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-6680-7743-6In Franklin’s radiant debut, a queer Black man reckons with his class privilege and drug use in the aftermath of his best friend’s mysterious death. David Smith, a 25-year-old tech worker and aspiring writer, is partying with old friends in the Hamptons when he’s arrested for cocaine possession. After returning to his Brooklyn apartment, Smith is jolted by memories of his best friend and roommate’s tragic death three weeks earlier.
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2 months ago | 
publishersweekly.com | André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong |Richard Bausch
Adelaide Faith. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-60866-8In Faith’s witty and irreverent debut, a British woman develops an unshakable obsession with her therapist. Sylvie, a veterinarian nurse, scrolled through 23 pages of therapists before choosing the “only one...
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2 months ago | 
publishersweekly.com | André Alexis |Markus Werner |Ocean Vuong |Richard Bausch
Knapp’s intriguing and nuanced debut comprises three alternate story lines for a British family. After giving birth to a baby boy in 1987, Cora goes to the registry office to record his name. Her abusive husband, Gordon, wants the baby named after himself, her nine-year-old daughter thinks Bear would be a good name, and Cora prefers Julian.
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2 months ago | 
publishersweekly.com | Ocean Vuong |Andy Anderegg |Sulaiman Addonia |Guadalupe Nettel
Ocean Vuong. Penguin Press, $30 (416p) ISBN 978-0-593-83187-8Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful story of a troubled young man. “The hardest thing in the world is to live only once,” 19-year-old Hai narrates in the opening line, but there’s a dark edge to the sentiment. The reader first meets Hai on a bridge in East Gladness, Conn., where he’s about to jump to his death.
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Feb 10, 2025 | 
oakiedog.substack.com | Ocean Vuong |Albert Ayler |David Katznelson
Hail, hail the noisemakers. The bombastic(k)ers. Those artists who challenge us with brutal sounds and who free us from the confines of our day-to-day environments, providing dental floss for the minds, providing moments of bliss to those who know how to translate the alien sounds. What better way to understand the chaos of our world than through opposing chaos; what better way to rise above the darkness than through a more hopefully intentioned anarchy.
