Latest news with #TheEmperorofGladness
Los Angeles Times
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, July 20
1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 2. Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart (Random House: $28) A tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country rapidly coming apart. 3. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 9 4. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 5. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 6. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab (Tor Books: $30) A vampiric tale follows three women across the centuries. 7. Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (Spiegel & Grau: $30) A suspenseful family drama about moral responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence. 8. My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende (Ballantine Books: $30) A young writer in the late 1800s travels to South America to uncover the truth about her father. 9. The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley (Ace: $30) A romantasy following an assassin and a healer forced to work together to cure a fatal disease. 10. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Henry Holt & Co.: $29) An unexpected wedding guest gets surprise help on her journey to starting anew. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A study of the barriers to progress in the U.S. 3. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. 122 4. A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst (Riverhead Books: $28) The true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a partnership stretched to its limits. 5. Lessons From Cats for Surviving Fascism by Stewart Reynolds (Grand Central Publishing: $13) A guide to channeling feline wisdom in the face of authoritarian nonsense. 6. 2024 by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, Isaac Arnsdorf (Penguin Press: $32) The inside story of a tumultuous and consequential presidential campaign. 7. Super Agers by Eric Topol (Simon & Schuster: $33) A detailed guide to a revolution transforming human longevity. 8. The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad (Random House: $30) A guide to the art of journaling and a meditation on the central questions of life. 9. We Can Do Hard Things by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle (The Dial Press: $34) The guidebook for being alive. 10. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator) (Scribner: $20) On gratitude, reciprocity and community, and the lessons to take from the natural world. … 1. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 2. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Ballantine: $20) 3. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 4. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 5. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 6. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 7. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner: $20) 8. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 9. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Perennial: $22) 10. Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley, $20) … 1. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin: $21) 2. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 3. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Vintage: $19) 4. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 5. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $13) 6. Sociopath by Patric Gagne, Ph.D. (Simon & Schuster: $20) 7. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 8. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 9. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 10. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. (Penguin: $19)
Los Angeles Times
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, July 13
1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 2. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 3. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 4. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 5. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab (Tor Books: $30) A vampiric tale follows three women across the centuries. 6. The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books: $30) A young father grapples with tragedy and the search for redemption. 7. So Far Gone by Jess Walter (Harper: $30) A reclusive journalist is forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren. 8. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 9. My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende (Ballantine Books: $30) A young writer in the late 1800s travels to South America to uncover the truth about her father. 10. Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell (Atria Books: $30) Three women are connected by one man who seems too good to be true. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A study of the political, economic and cultural barriers to progress in the U.S. and how to work toward a politics of abundance. 3. Wealthy and Well-Known by Rory Vaden and AJ Vaden (Mission Driven Press: $27) How to master the art of personal branding. 4. Lessons From Cats for Surviving Fascism by Stewart Reynolds (Grand Central Publishing: $13) A guide to channeling feline wisdom in the face of authoritarian nonsense. 5. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press: $45) The Pulitzer-winning biographer explores the life of the celebrated American writer. 6. Notes to John by Joan Didion (Knopf: $32) Diary entries from the famed writer's journal. 7. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 8. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. 9. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. 10. Actress of a Certain Age by Jeff Hiller (Simon & Schuster: $29) A collection of autobiographical essays from the comedian and actor. … 1. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 2. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 3. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Ballantine: $20) 4. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 5. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 6. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner: $20) 7. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage: $19) 8. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 9. Funny Story by Emily Henry (Berkley: $19) 10. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) … 1. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 2. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin: $21) 3. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 4. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 5. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World: $20) 6. Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco: $19) 7. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 8. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 9. All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley (Simon & Schuster: $18) 10. The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger (Harper Perennial: $20)
Sydney Morning Herald
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Love, loss and found family among America's lower working class
FICTION The Emperor of Gladness Ocean Vuong Jonathan Cape, $34.99 Ocean Vuong achieved fame as a poet before his acclaimed debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, andthere's creative continuity in follow-up The Emperor of Gladness. Previously examined motifs undergo complex transformations so that it reads like the literary equivalent of a musical variation. Autobiography is grist to the mill for Vuong. His mother fled Saigon for the US, via the Philippines, when he was an infant. He was raised in Connecticut among an extended family of Vietnamese refugees. He's also openly gay. These experiences inspire but do not define his creative fiction, and if the vaunted lyricism of a particular style of American dreaming marks the opening of The Emperor of Gladness – a flashy choric invocation of a dead-end Connecticut town, its ghosts inviting suicidal 19-year-old, Hai, to escape by jumping off a bridge – it isn't long before sublime cadence and melancholy grandeur yield to a different kind of song. An old woman spies the boy in the rain, and roundly tells him: 'You can't die in front of my house, okay?' This is Grazina – a force to be reckoned with, having survived Hitler and Stalin in Lithuania during WWII, and now in a battle to preserve her independence against the onset of dementia. Hai moves in as an unofficial carer, to keep her out of a nursing home. Grim doesn't begin to cover their living conditions; the house is decrepit and built on a toxic contamination site and Grazina can't afford to feed them. So Hai lands a job (courtesy of his cousin Sony, named after the television manufacturer) at a budget restaurant chain. As Hai's friendship with Grazina grows, he bathes her, comforts her when decades-old war trauma resurfaces, and engages in role-playing historical battles with her to manage her sundowning. He reads Slaughterhouse Five and The Brothers Karamazov from her dead husband's library and, alas, stumbles across an unused bottle of serious painkillers … dire news for someone recovering from opioid addiction. At work, Hai rocks up to every shift pinned to cope with the drudgery. Genuine camaraderie and unlikely dignity are found among the motley crew who work there, despite some extreme weirdness. Long-serving Maureen evades grief in conspiracist thinking – she believes lizard men control the world, she speaks like a drag queen, and she harbours a Star Wars obsession. Manager BJ conducts herself with an almost martial pride – giving inspirational speeches, slipping cake mix into the cornbread to make it more appealing, and training to achieve her dream of making it on the commercial wrestling stage. Dreams are thwarted in this place – except perhaps for Sony; his unaffected desires, whether in crafting origami penguins or in his encyclopedic knowledge of the American Civil War, throw into sharp relief the miseries inflicted on other characters by unattainable ones.
The Age
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Love, loss and found family among America's lower working class
FICTION The Emperor of Gladness Ocean Vuong Jonathan Cape, $34.99 Ocean Vuong achieved fame as a poet before his acclaimed debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, andthere's creative continuity in follow-up The Emperor of Gladness. Previously examined motifs undergo complex transformations so that it reads like the literary equivalent of a musical variation. Autobiography is grist to the mill for Vuong. His mother fled Saigon for the US, via the Philippines, when he was an infant. He was raised in Connecticut among an extended family of Vietnamese refugees. He's also openly gay. These experiences inspire but do not define his creative fiction, and if the vaunted lyricism of a particular style of American dreaming marks the opening of The Emperor of Gladness – a flashy choric invocation of a dead-end Connecticut town, its ghosts inviting suicidal 19-year-old, Hai, to escape by jumping off a bridge – it isn't long before sublime cadence and melancholy grandeur yield to a different kind of song. An old woman spies the boy in the rain, and roundly tells him: 'You can't die in front of my house, okay?' This is Grazina – a force to be reckoned with, having survived Hitler and Stalin in Lithuania during WWII, and now in a battle to preserve her independence against the onset of dementia. Hai moves in as an unofficial carer, to keep her out of a nursing home. Grim doesn't begin to cover their living conditions; the house is decrepit and built on a toxic contamination site and Grazina can't afford to feed them. So Hai lands a job (courtesy of his cousin Sony, named after the television manufacturer) at a budget restaurant chain. As Hai's friendship with Grazina grows, he bathes her, comforts her when decades-old war trauma resurfaces, and engages in role-playing historical battles with her to manage her sundowning. He reads Slaughterhouse Five and The Brothers Karamazov from her dead husband's library and, alas, stumbles across an unused bottle of serious painkillers … dire news for someone recovering from opioid addiction. At work, Hai rocks up to every shift pinned to cope with the drudgery. Genuine camaraderie and unlikely dignity are found among the motley crew who work there, despite some extreme weirdness. Long-serving Maureen evades grief in conspiracist thinking – she believes lizard men control the world, she speaks like a drag queen, and she harbours a Star Wars obsession. Manager BJ conducts herself with an almost martial pride – giving inspirational speeches, slipping cake mix into the cornbread to make it more appealing, and training to achieve her dream of making it on the commercial wrestling stage. Dreams are thwarted in this place – except perhaps for Sony; his unaffected desires, whether in crafting origami penguins or in his encyclopedic knowledge of the American Civil War, throw into sharp relief the miseries inflicted on other characters by unattainable ones.
Los Angeles Times
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, June 29
1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 2. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 3. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab (Tor Books: $30) A vampiric tale follows three women across the centuries. 4. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 5. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 6. King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar: $29) A man returns to his roots to save his family in this Southern crime epic. 7. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 8. The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books: $30) A young father grapples with tragedy and the search for redemption. 9. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) The bestselling crime writer returns with a new cop on a mission, this time on Catalina Island. 10. With a Vengeance by Riley Sager (Dutton: $30) A deadly game of survival and revenge plays out on a luxury train heading from Philadelphia to Chicago. … 1. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A call to renew a politics of plenty and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. 2. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 3. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 4. Steve Martin Writes the Written Word by Steve Martin (Grand Central Publishing: $30) A collection of greatest hits from the beloved actor and comedian. 5. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. 6. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press: $45) The Pulitzer-winning biographer explores the life of the celebrated American writer. 7. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. 8. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator) (Scribner: $20) The 'Braiding Sweetgrass' author on gratitude, reciprocity and community, and the lessons to take from the natural world. 9. I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally (Gallery Books: $30) The restaurateur relates his gritty childhood and rise in the dining scene. 10. It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei, Steven Scott, Justin Eisinger and Harmony Becker (illustrator) (Top Shelf Productions: $30) The actor and activist tells his most personal story of all in a full-color graphic memoir. … 1. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 2. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 3. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 4. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 5. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 6. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 7. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin: $18) 8. Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Harper Perennial: $19) 9. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Grand Central: $20) 10. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Vintage: $18) … 1. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 2. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 3. The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (Penguin: $19) 4. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Vintage: $19) 5. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin: $21) 6. Sociopath by Patric Gagne (Simon & Schuster: $20) 7. The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger (Harper Perennial: $20) 8. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 9. Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (Crown: $20) 10. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20)
