New Ocean Vuong Book

Ocean Vuong has a new novel out, The Emperor of Gladness. If I absolutely had to pick a favorite book, it would probably be On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Vuong, so I've been super excited about this second novel.

Yesterday I went on a hike that spit me out about a 20 minute walk from the local bookshop where I pre-ordered the book, so I decided to extend the walk and go pick up my copy. I didn't realize it, but my local bookstore's first shipment of these books were signed-- cool surprise!

I'm going to start this novel tonight, I'm really excited about it. I've been let down by sophomore novels by authors I really love before, so I'm trying not to set my expectations too high. We went to see Vuong speak a few months ago at SDCC, and he talked about viewing his work as finite, and that he doesn't want to endlessly produce over the course of his life. He said he plans to only publish a specific number (that I can't quite remember-- horrifically it might have been as low as 5, and Emperor is is 4th publication) of books, so I really plan on savoring it.