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AJ Dunn Reads

AJ Dunn is a gender non-binary author of contemporary thrillers and an avid reader of all genres. This site is a diary of books they are reading.

The Emperor of Gladness By Ocean Vuong

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May 30, 2025

The Emperor of Gladness

By Ocean Vuong

5 stars!

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11/22/63
A Brief History of Seven Killings
A Doubter's Almanac
A Land More Kind Than Home
A Little Life
A Mercy
A Passage North
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Prayer for Owen Meany
A Rage in Harlem

A Spell of Good Things
A Stranger in the House
A Study in Scarlet
A Tale of Two Cities
A Year of Marvellous Ways
A.S. Byatt
Acceptance
After You'd Gone
Agnes Grey
Alana Saab
Alex Gino
Alex Michaelides
Alexis Schaitkin
Ali Smith
Alice Winn
All Fours
All the Little Bird-Hearts
All's Well
All's Well That Ends Well
Alphabetical Diaries
Amanda Quick
American Tabloid
Amsterdam
Andrew Ewell
Andrew O'Hagan
Andy Weir
Animal
Anita Brookner
Anita De Monta Laughs Last
Ann Patchett
Anna Burns
Anna Karenine
Anna Quindlen
Anne Brontë
Anne Enright
Anne Frank
Anne Michaels
Annihilation
Anthony Doerr
Anthony Oliveira
anthropology
Antonia Angress
Anuk Arudpragasam
Anyone's Ghost
Apartment
Arundhati Roy
As Always Julia
Ash Davidson
Audrey Magee
Audrey Niffenegger
August Thompson
Authority
autofiction
Autumn
Avni Doshi
Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Ayòbámi Adébáyò
Baby Teeth
Babysitter
Bag of Bones
Barbara Kingsolver
Basic Black With Pearls
Bel Canto
Beloved
Beneath A Scarlet Sky
Bernardine Evaristo
Bernice Rubens
Betty
Bewilderment
Beyond Black
Big Swiss
Bill Gaythwaite
Billy Summers
biology
bipoc
Birnam Wood
Bitter Orange
Black Dove
Blackouts
Blacktop Wasteland
Blake Crouch
Bliss Montage
Blonde
Blood Meridian
botany
Boy's Life
Boys of Alabama
Braiding Sweetgrass
Bram Stoker
Bret Easton Ellis
Bring Up the Bodies
Brit Bennett
Brotherless Night
Bryce Courtenay
Bunny
Burnt Sugar
Caite Dolan-Leach
Caleb Carr
Caledonian Road
Cannery Row
Caoilinn Hughes
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Caroline Kepnes
Caroline O'Donoghue
Carys Davies
Catherine Newman
Cell
Ceremony
Chain-Gang All-Stars
Charles Dickens
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Wood
Cherie Dimaline
Chester Himes
Chetna Maroo
children's
Chinua Achebe
Chris Abani
Christine
Chuck Palahniuk
Claire Adam
Claire Fuller
Claire Keegan
Claire Lombardo
Claire Messud
Claire Oshetsky
Claire Pollard
Claire-Louise Bennett
classic
Cleanness
Clear
Close to Home
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Colin Barrett
Colin McAdam
Colleen Hubbard
Colson Whitehead
Comanche Moon
Confidence
Convenience Store Woman
cooking
Cormac McCarthy
Craig DiLouie
Creation Lake
crime
Crossroads
Cujo
Cycle of the Werewolf
Daddy
Damnation Spring
Damon Galgut
Dan Brown
Dana Spiotta
Daniel James Brown
Daniel keyes
Daniel Magariel
Daniel Mason
Danse Macabre
Daphne Du Maurier
Dashiell Hammett
David Copperfield
David Peace
David Szalay
David Wroblewski
Davis Grubb
Day
Days Without End
Dayspring
DBC Pierre
Dead Letters
Dead Man's Walk
Dean Koontz
Death in Her Hands
Deesha Philyaw
Defending Jacob
Delia Owens
Delphi
Deluge
Demon Copperhead
Dennis Lehane
Derek Raymond
Desolation Mountain
Desperation
Different Seasons
Doctor Sleep
Dolores Claiborne
Donald L. Miller
Donna Tartt
Dorothy B Hughes
Double Indemnity
Douglas Stuart
Dracula
Dreamcatcher
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Dubliners
Duma Key
Dune
ecology
economics
Eden Robinson
Eileen
Ela Lee
Elaine Feeney
Eleanor Catton
Elena Ferrante
Elevation
Eliot Duncan
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gonzalez James
Elsewhere
EM Forster
Emily Austin
Emily Fridlund
Emily St. John Mandel
Emma
Emma Cline
Emma Donoghue
Empire of Wild
End of Watch
Enduring Love
Enlightenment
Enon
Entangled Life
Enter Ghost
Éric Chacour
Eric Nguyen
essays
Ethan Canin
Every Last One
Everybody's Fool
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
Everything's Eventual
F. Scott Fitzgerald
fairy tale
Fannie Flagg
fantasy
Far from the Madding Crowd
Fatale
fiction
Finders Keepers
Finding the Mother Tree
Fiona Barnett
Fiona Barton
Firestarter
Flesh
Flowers for Algernon
Flynn Berry
Foster
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos
Four Past Midnight
Foxfire
Frank Herbert
Frankenstein
Franny and Zooey
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
From a Buick 8
Full Dark
G
Gabrielle Zevin
Garth Greenwell
Garth Risk Hallberg
Gary Indiana
Genevieve Hudson
Geoffrey Chaucer
George
George Eliot
George Saunders
Gerald's Game
Getaway
Gilead
Gillian Flynn
Giovanni's Room
Girl Missing
GirlWomanOther
Go as a River
Go Tell It on the Mountain
God Help the Child
Golden Child
Gone Baby Gone
Gone Girl
gothic
Graham Greene
Greenwood
Gustave Flaubert
H.G. Wells
Hamlet
Hamnet
Hanya Yanagihara
Hard Times
Harlan Coben
Harold
He Died With His Eyes Open
Headshot
Heart Spring Mountain
Hearts in Atlantis
Held
Helen DeWitt
Helen Weinzweig
Here in Avalon
Hernan Diaz
Hidden Bodies
Hila Blum
Hilary Mantel
Hisham Matar
historical
history
History of Wolves
Holding the Man
Holly
Home
Homeland and Other Stories
Homesick for Another World
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
horror
Hotel Du Lac
House of Leaves
Housebreaking
Housekeeping
How Fungi Change Our Minds
How to Build a Boat
How to Love Your Daughter
How We Fight for Our Lives
Howard Jacobson
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
I Will Greet the Sun Again
I'm Glad My Mom Died
Ian McEwan
If I Survive You
If It Bleeds
In A Free State
In Ascension
In Cold Blood
In Memoriam
In the Woods
indigenous
Infinite Country
Insomina
Interesting Facts About Space
Into the Wild
Invisible Man
Iris Murdoch
Isabella Hammad
IT
J.D. Salinger
J.G. Farrell
Jack
Jaded
Jaime Jo Wright
Jake Wolff
James
James Baldwin
James Ellroy
James Joyce
James M Cain
James McBride
Jane Austen
Jaws
Jayne Anne Phillips
Jazz
Jean-Dominique Bauby
Jean-Patrick Manchette
Jeanette Winterson
Jeff Boyd
Jeff Vandermeer
Jeffrey Eugenides
Jen Beagin
Jennette McCurdy
Jennifer McMahon
Jenny Erpenbeck
Jo Nesbo
Joanna Quinn
John Banville
John Berger
John Boyne
John Fram
John Hart
John Irving
John Knowles
John Le Carré
John LeCarré
John of John
John Steinbeck
John Updike
Jon Krakauer
Jonathan Escoffery
Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Parks-Ramage
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Joshua Cohen
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyland
Julia Child
Julia Heaberlin
Julian Barnes
Julie & Julia
Julie Myerson
Julie Otsuka
Julie Powell
Jung Chang
Juno Loves Legs
Jurassic Park
Just After Sunset
Justin Torres
Kairos
KarinSlaughter
Karl Geary
Kate Atkinson
Katy Simpson Smith
Kawai Strong Washburn
Kelly Barnhill
Ken Kesey
Keri Hulme
Keya Das's Second Act
Khaled Hosseini
Khashayar J. Khabushani
Killing Floor
Kindred
Kudos
Lapvona
Larry McMurtry
Last Night in Montreal
Later
Laurie Frankel
Leave the World Behind
Lee Child
legal
Leo Tolstoy
Les Misérables
Leslie Marmon Silko
Lessons
letters
Lexie Elliott
Life After Life
Lila
Lincoln in the Bardo
Ling Ma
Lisa Howorth
Lisa Taddeo
Lisey's Story
literary
Lizzie Pook
Lolita
Lonesome Dove
Lorrie Moore
Love
Lucy Ellman
Luster
MacBeth
Madame Bovary
Madeline Miller
Maggie O'Farrell
magical realism
Make Our Worlds
Mansfield Park
Mapping the Interior
Margaret Atwood
Margot Livesey
Mariana Enriquez
Marilou is Everywhere
Marilynne Robinson
Mark Sullivan
Mark Z. Danielewski
Marlon James
Martin MacInnes
Mary Shelley
Masters of the Air
Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge
Maurice
Max Porter
Mayflies
McGlue
Melissa Broder
memoir
Merlin Sheldrake
Mexican Gothic
Micah Nemerever
Michael Amherst
Michael Christie
Michael Crichton
Michael Cunningham
Michael Magee
middle grade
Middlemarch
Middlesex
Mikki Brammer
Milk Fed
Milkman
Min Jin Lee
Miranda Darling
Miranda July
Misery
modern
Mona Awad
Monkey Beach
Monogamy
Mothered
Mr. Mercedes
Much Ado About Nothing
My Brilliant Friend
My Darling Girl
My Friends
My Life in France
My Lover's Lover
My Men
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
mystery
Mystic River
N. Scott Momaday
Nadine Gordimer
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Nancy Isenberg
Nash Jenkins
Nathan Harris
Nathan Hill
Native Son
Natsuo Kirino
Needful Things
Night of the Hunter
Night of the Mannequins
Night Shift
Night Sleep Death the Stars
Night Watch
Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Nineteen Seventy-Four
Nino Haratischvili
No Stars
Nobody's Fool
nonfiction
Normal People
North and South
North Woods
Northanger Abbey
Ocean Vuong
Octavia E. Butler
Ohio
Old God's Time
Olga Tokarczuk
Oliver Twist
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One of Us
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Orbital
Ordinary Grace
Orient Express
Oscar Wilde
Ottessa Moshfegh
Our Endless Numbered Days
Out
Outline
P.H. Newby
Pachinko
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Pae Veo
parables
Paradise
paranormal
Patric Gagne
Patricia Engel
Patricia Highsmith
Pattern Recognition
Paul Beatty
Paul Harding
Paul Lynch
Paul Murray
Paula Hawkins
Peace Breaks Out
Pearl
Percival Everett
Persuasion
Pet Sematary
Peter Benchley
Piranesi
play
Playground
Please Stop Trying to Leave Me
POC
Pond
Ponyboy
Poor Deer
Possession: A Romance
Precious
Pretty Girls
Prophet Song
psychological horror
psychology
Pulitzer Prize
Push
queer
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Rachel Khong
Rachel Kushner
Rafael Frumkin
Ralph Ellison
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Raven Leilani
Raymond Chandler
Real Americans
Rebecca
Red Harvest
Rent Boy
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Richard Powers
Richard Russo
Richard Wright
Richard Yates
Rick
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Rita Mae Brown
Robert Jones Jr
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert McCammon
Robin MacArthur
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Roddy Doyle
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Rose Madder
Rubyfruit Jungle
Rumaan Alam
Ruth Ozeki
SA Cosby
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Saeed Jones
Sally Rooney
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Samantha Harvey
Sandwich
Sapphire
Sarah Bernstein
Sarah Elaine Smith
Sarah Perry
Sarah Waters
Sarah Winman
Saul Bellow
Sayaka Murata
science
science fiction
screenplay
SE Hinton
Sea of Tranquility
Searching for Marilyn monroe
Sebastian Barry
Set for Life
Seven Empty Houses
Shape Our Futures
Shari Lapena
Sharks in the Time of Saviors
Sharp Objects
Shehan Karunatilaka
Sheila Heti
Shelley Read
Shirley Jackson
short story
Shuggie Bain
Shy
Siân Hughes
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Simon Baron-Cohen
Simon Van Booy
Simone St. James
Sipsworth
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sirens & Muses
Skeleton Crew
Small Things Like These
Sociopath
Somebody's Fool
Something to Answer For
Song of Solomon
Song of Susannah
Sopan Deb
sports
Spring
spy
Stacey Lee
Station Eleven
Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen King
Stephen Markley
Steven Rowley
Steven Wright
Stieg Larsson
Still Life
Stoneyard Devotional
Storm of the Century
Strangers
Streets of Laredo
Study for Obedience
Sue Grafton
Sue Miller
Sula
Summerlings
supernatural
Susanna Clarke
Susanna Hoffs
suspense
Suzanne Simard
Swimmers
Swimming in the Dark
Swimming Lessons
Tan Twan Eng
Tana French
Tananarive Due
Tar Baby
Tara Isabella Burton
Tara June Winch
Teddy Wayne
Teju Cole
Tell No One
Tess Gerritsen
The (Other) You
The Absolutist
The Adventures of Augie March
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Alienist
The Alternatives
The Ancient Child
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
The Bee Sting
The Big Sleep
The Blind Assassin
The Bluest Eye
The Bone People
The Book of Cold Cases
The Book of Form and Emptiness
The Book of Goose
The Books of Jacob
The Boy in the Field
The Boyhood of Cain
The Boys in the Boat
The Bright Lands
The Bullet Swallower
The Canterbury Tales
The Changeling
The Cider House Rules
The Collected Regrets of Clover
The Colony
The Colorado Kid
The Conservationist
The Couple Next Door
The Crane Husband
The Da Vinci Code
The Dark Between the Trees
The Dark Half
The Dark Tower
The Days of Abandonment
The Dead Zone
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Downstairs Girl
The Drawing of the Three
The Drowning Kind
The Dutch House
The Eighth Life
The Elected Member
The Emperor of Gladness
The Expendable Man
The Eyes of the Dragon
The Finkler Question
The Gathering
The Girl on the Train
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
The Girl Who Outgrew the World
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Glass Hotel
The God of Small Things
The Gravedigger's Daughter
The Great Gatsby
The Green Mile
The Guest
The Guncle
The Gunslinger
The Haunting of Hill House
The Heart's Invisible Furies
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
The History of Living Forever
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The House of Doors
The House of Eve
The Hunt for Red October
The Institute
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The Kite Runner
The Last Chairlift
The Last Child
The Last Samurai
The Little Friend
The Little Stranger
The Lola Quartet
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
The Luminaries
The Magician's Assistant
The Maltese Falcon
The Martian
The Memory of Animals
The Mirror and the Light
The Missing Years
The Most Fun We Ever Had
The Netanyahus
The New Life
The Nickel Boys
The Only Good Indians
The Other
The Other Lady Vanishes
The Outsider
The Outsiders
The Overstory
The People in the Trees
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Power of One
The Promise
The Prophets
The Pull of the Stars
The Rachel Incident
The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond
The Reformatory
The River is Waiting
The River We Remember
The Safekeep
The Science of Evil
The Sea
The Sea the Sea
The Second Coming
The Secret History
The Secret History of Las Vegas
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
The Sense of an Ending
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
The Shadow of the Wind
The Shards
The Siege of Krishnapur
The Sign of the Four
The Silent Patient
The Singer's Gun
The Snowman
The Song of Achilles
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Stand
The Story of a New Name
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Sweetness of Water
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
The Things They Carried
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Tommyknockers
The Vanishing Half
The War of the Worlds
The Waste Lands
The Waves
The Weeds
The Weight
The Whalebone Theatre
The White Boy Shuffle
The Widow
The Wind Through the Keyhole
The Witches of Eastwick
The Woman in White
The World Cannot Give
The Wren
The Yield
Their Eyes Were Watching God
There There
These Violent Delights
Things Are Against Us
Things Fall Apart
Things We Lost in the Fire
Things We Lost to the Water
This Bird Had Flown
This Boy's Life
This Is How It Always Is
This Must Be the Place
This Other Eden
This Strange Eventful History
This Tender Land
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Tryon
Those Bones Are Not My Child
thriller
Thunderhead
Tiffany McDaniel
Tim O'Brien
Timothy Conigrave
Tin Man
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tinkers
To Paradise
Tobias Wolff
Tom Clancy
Tom Crewe
Tom Lake
Tomasz Jedrowski
Tommy Orange
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Toni Cade Bambara
Toni Morrison
Tracey Lange
Transit
Tremor
Troubles
Truman Capote
Trust
Under the Dome
Under the Harrow
Underburn
Unsettled Ground
V.E. Schwab
V.S. Naipaul
V.V. Ganeshananthan
Vernon God Little
Victor Hugo
Victor Lavalle
Victoria Kielland
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
Villette
Virginia Woolf
Vladimir Nabokov
Walk the Darkness Down
Wally Lamb
Wandering Stars
Wayward
Wayward Pines 1: Pines
Wayward Pines 2: Wayward
Wayward Pines 3: The Last Town
We Are All the Same in the Dark
We Are the Brennans
We the Animals
We Were the Mulvaneys
Wellness
western
Western Lane
What I Know About You
When God Was a Rabbit
When We Were Birds
Where the Crawdads Sing
Where the Red Fern Grows
White Trash
Wild Houses
Wild Swans
Wiley Cash
Wilkie Collins
William Gibson
William Kent Krueger
William Landay
William Shakespeare
Wilson Rawls
Winter
Wizard and Glass
Wolf Hall
Wolves of Calla
Wonderland
Xochitl Gonzalez
Y is for Yesterday
YA
Yael Van Der Wouden
Yes
Yiyun Li
You
You Love Me
young adult
Young Mungo
Zero-Sum
Zoje Stage
Zombie
Zora Neale Hurston

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The Emperor of Gladness By Ocean Vuong

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