Meghan Daum is the author of six books including The Problem with Everything and The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, which won the 2015 PEN Center USA Literary Award for creative nonfiction. Her other books include the essay collection My Misspent Youth, and the New York Times bestseller Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, which she edited. From 2005 to 2016, Daum was an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times. She has contributed to numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and Vogue. A recipient of a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, she is on the adjunct faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. She is also the creator and host of the weekly interview podcast, The Unspeakable.
One of The New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of
2019
One of The New York Post’s Best Books of 2019
“Electrifying.”
- The New York Times
“… affectingly personal, achingly earnest, and something close to
necessary.”
– Vogue.com
“an elegantly-composed treatise against tribalism and cancel
culture that seamlessly weaves in personal anecdotes.”
– Elle
“Personal, convincing, unflinching.”
- Tablet
“Daum's writing is brave and engaging; she does some hard thinking
about our times and demands that we do too.”
– Newsweek
“A book of thoughtful, provocative essays on everything from the
Trump presidency to identity politics to generational differences
and beyond. At a time when nuance of any kind is often dismissed,
Daum offers thoughtful takes on hot-button topics.”
– The New York Post
“This book is the eloquent testament of a card-carrying
feminist who abhors the stranglehold that political correctness has
placed on intellectual life in America. As such, it is to be
applauded—and I do.”
—Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments and The Odd Woman and
the City
"The Problem with Everything has the brutal honesty and rawness
that will leave you examining your own thoughts and beliefs about
the culture we are living in today. It forces you to ask yourself
the question: whose side am I really on, and why do I have to
choose one? I love how this book pushes me to think harder and be
smarter."
—Chelsea Handler, author of Life Will Be the Death of Me . . .
and You too!
"For those who are outraged by the current political
moment and yet are feeling weary from the outrage, for the
Gen-Xers who got lost between generations, or really anyone feeling
a little more lost than everyone they follow on Twitter, let Meghan
Daum be your spiritual guide! She'll show you that it's possible to
be alive in this political moment but in your own way."
—Hanna Rosin, host of
NPR’s Invisibilia podcast
"Meghan Daum's observations will stand in the future as a perfect
encapsulation of how social media has transformed educated
people's sense of what it is to be moral in the 2010s. More to the
point, this book shines a light on us right now, a brighter and
more revealing one than anything on the Twittersphere."
—John McWhorter, author of Words on the Move and The Language
Hoax
“Just when you thought feminist iconoclasm had gone into retreat or
extinction, The Problem With Everything arrives, slicing through
the intellectual murk of outrage culture and edgy online wokeness.
Daum is a virtuoso at rueful insights and self-interrogation,
willing to risk upending things in the knowledge that ‘safe spaces’
and safe ideas advance none of us.”
—Laura Kipnis, author of Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes
to Campus
“Meghan Daum has a world-class BS detector. In elegant, incisive,
often hilarious prose, she calmly applies it to the confusion and
narcissism threatening so many of our most feverish, social
media-driven debates. From the shifting terms of “fourth-wave”
feminism to the paradoxes of privilege and the myopia of
tribalism, The Problem with Everything probes a
liberalism under assault from all fronts and in danger of falling
apart from within. Nothing escapes Daum’s scrutiny—least of all
herself.”
—Thomas Chatterton Williams, author of Self-Portrait In Black And
White: Unlearning Race
“Showcasing both her sense of humor and her sense of outrage,
Meghan Daum’s The Problem with Everything will make you
laugh and it will make you think. In these polarized times, her
call for nuance feels brave, and sorely necessary. Daum strides
into that most challenging, confusing of places – the grey area –
and forces us to confront and unpack its layers.”
—A.M. Homes, author of Days of Awe
“Sharp, brazen, and undeniably controversial.”
– Kirkus
”Daum, an old-school essayist more in the vein of Joan Didion and
Nora Ephron than xoJane and Jezebel, says she will continue to
tease out the nuances that exist all around us, even as doing so
becomes increasingly... problematic.”
– The Stranger
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