Written by Meghan Daum | 29 February 2012

Recently I made a virtual visit to the Hub City Book Club in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It's run by the clearly awesome Hub City Book Shop, which has apparently hand sold ("hand selling" means, like, actually knowing what customers might like and recommending books accordingly) many dozens of copies of Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House. I hope I get to visit Hub City in person someday but, meanwhile, it was fun to chat via Skype and hear about  people's house fantasies, extra room dreams, and all ways  their lives would be perfect if . . .

If you'd like me to talk with your book club via Syke or old fashioned speaker phone (or in person in you're in Southern California) send me an email.

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Written by Meghan Daum | 13 January 2012

Over the last few years, I've found myself reading a lot of internet comments. Not necessarily the ones I get on my column, which I've resolved not to read anymore lest I waste a lot of time and gas money trying to hunt down the person whose screen name is "BigH8R26" and who shows up every week to remind everyone that I'm a moron and a hack, not to mention hideously unattractive. But unfortunately I do too often read comments about things I've read (or watched or listened to) online and they are often so vituperative and abusive that I wind up in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

So after years of thinking about all this stuff much too much, I sat down and wrote an essay about the whole phenomenon. It's called Haterade. It's not just about commenting itself but about the way the culture of "instant response" has changed the way we read and write, and even just go about living our lives.

Haterade is in this month's issue of The Believer Magazine. It's on the long side, so if you're going to read it I'd advise you to set aside a little time. It also starts with a fairly lengthy, embarrassing anecdote from my early career that might at first seem unrelated to the subject matter, but stick with it, if only to snicker over the embarrassing anecdote.

Opportunities for publishing long, juicy essays like this are fewer and farther between than ever and this is one of those pieces that I wrote on my own with no idea of where (if anywhere) it might be published. And while some more mainstream magazines were willing to publish it at a quarter or less of the length, I kept shopping around until I found a publication that was willing to print all 5000-plus words of it. So I'm very grateful to The Believer, which is a wonderful magazine you should be reading anyway. Oh, and you'll notice they don't have a comment board, though for better or worse this blog does.

Once again, here is is: Haterade. Enjoy!

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Written by Meghan Daum | 20 December 2011

Wishing you a merry, happy and peaceful season.

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Written by Meghan Daum | 15 October 2011

 Finally! You can experience my book without going to the trouble to read it!

Back in July I spent nearly 20 hours in the studio recording my the audio version of Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House and it’s finally out! It was a valuable learning experience in that I realized a) I use the word “particularly” a lot (and it’s kind of hard to say out loud) b) there are only so many words for moulding (such as “moulding”) and c) there’s a fine line between eating enough food before the recording session that your stomach isn't growling but not so much that you get those little belching sounds. TMI, I know. But Life Would Be Perfect is like that, you know?

It's available from Audible.com and you can buy it right here.

 Here I am, thinking "I am never, ever again going to write such long sentences." Next book will be in monosyllables.

12 full CDs! It's unabridged, people!