Ocean Vuong: The Emperor of Gladness

Paris Hilton0:00

Hey, babes. It's Paris Hilton. So I was checking my points balance in the Hilton Honors app the other day, and yeah, I've got about a billion, which feels excessive, even for me. Just kidding. You can never have too many Hilton Honors points. And I wanna do something iconic this summer, so I'm giving away all my Paris points. Just find somewhere you've always wanted to stay, then go to my socials or Hilton's and tell me about it. Just make sure you're a Hilton Honors member, and I might be sending you Paris points. Because when you want points that make your summer even hotter, it matters where you stay.

Speaker 20:29

[upbeat music] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Inklings Book Club podcast. I'm your host, Jack Edwards, and for this month, we chose The Emperor of Gladness as the Inklings book of the month. And so, [exhales] you know what that means. I actually can't believe this is real, but we are joined today by the inimitable Ocean Vuong. I'm overwhelmed by this because Ocean is one of my favorite writers. His debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, won the American Book Award, the Mark Twain Award, and the New England Book Award. It has sold over two million copies and marked the arrival of an incredible talent onto the literary scene. He is also the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award, and his books of poems include Time Is a Mother, which was a finalist for the Griffin Prize, and Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which was the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, and the Thom