Many of us have dog-eared copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in our kitchens or fondly remember watching episodes of The French Chef, but what was behind the enormous appeal of this ungainly, unlikely woman, who became a superstar in midlife and changed our approach to food and cooking forever? In the spirit of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel and How Georgia Became O'Keeffe, Julia Child Rules dissects the life of the sunny, unpretentious chef, author, cooking show star, and bon vivant, with an eye towards learning how we, too, can savor life. With her characteristic wit and flair, Karen Karbo takes us for a spin through Julia's life: from her idyllic childhood in California to her confusing young adulthood in New York; her years working for the OSS in Sri Lanka; her world class love affairs with Paris and Paul Child; and her decades as America's beloved French chef. Karbo weaves in her own personal experiences and stops for important life lessons along the way: how to live by your whims, make the world your oyster, live happily married, work hard, and enjoy a life of full immersion. It celebrates Julia's indomitable spirit and irrepressible joy, giving readers a taste of what it means to master the art of living.

A modern look at the life of a legendary fashion icon--with practical life lessons for women of all ages

Delving into the long, extraordinary life of renowned French fashion designer Coco Chanel, Karen Karbo has written a new kind of self-help book, exploring Chanel's philosophy on a range of universal themes--from style to passion, from money and success to femininity and living life on your own terms.

Born in 1883 in a poorhouse in southern France, Chanel grew up to be the woman who not only gave us the little black dress and boxy jackets, but also bestowed upon women a chic freedom that helped usher them into the modern era. Elegant, opinionated, and passionate, she was the only fashion icon among TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century.

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel is a captivating, offbeat look at style, celebrity, and self-invention--all held together with droll Chanel-style commentary and culled from an examination of Chanel's difficult childhood and triumphant adulthood, passionate love affairs, and eccentricities.

Warner Brothers set to release a major motion picture on this subject, Coco Before Chanel, in Fall 2009.

This witty, irreverent paperback explores the legacies of 30 extraordinary women--from Frida Kahlo to Liz Taylor to Nora Ephron--who give inspiration and instruction.

Smart, sassy, and unapologetically feminine, this elegantly illustrated book is an ode to the bold and charismatic women of modern history. Best-selling author Karen Karbo (The Gospel According to Coco Chanel) spotlights a group of spirited rule breakers who charted their way with little regard for expectations: Amelia Earhart, Helen Gurley Brown, Carrie Fisher, Hillary Clinton, Amy Poehler, and Shonda Rhimes, among others. Their lives--imperfect, elegant, messy, glorious--provide inspiration and instruction for the new age of feminism we have entered. Karbo distills these lessons with empathy and humor, examining the universal themes that connect us to these mesmerizing personalities today: success and style, love and authenticity, daring and courage. Being difficult, Karbo reveals, might not make life easier. But it can make it more fulfilling--whatever that means for you.

Most people associate Georgia O'Keeffe with New Mexico, painted cow skulls, and her flower paintings. She was revered for so long--born in 1887, died at age ninety-eight in 1986--that we forget how young, restless, passionate, searching, striking, even fearful she once was--a dazzling, mysterious female force in bohemian New York City during its heyday.

In this distinctive book, Karen Karbo cracks open the O'Keeffe icon in her characteristic style, making one of the greatest women painters in American history vital and relevant for yet another generation. She chronicles O'Keeffe's early life, her desire to be an artist, and the key moment when art became her form of self-expression. She also explores O'Keeffe's passionate love affair with master photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who took a series of 500 black-and-white photographs of O'Keeffe during the early years of their marriage.

This is not a traditional biography, but rather a compelling, contemporary reassessment of the life of O'Keeffe with an eye toward understanding what we can learn from her way of being in the world.

The author of the acclaimed, bestselling In Praise of Difficult Women delivers a hilarious feminist manifesto that encourages us to reject self-improvement and instead learn to appreciate and flaunt our complex, and flawed, human selves.

Why are we so obsessed with being our so-called best selves? Because our modern culture force feeds women lies designed to heighten their insecurities: You can do it all--crush it at work, at home, in the bedroom, at PTA and at Pilates--and because you can, you should. We can show you how

Karen Karbo has had enough. She's taking a stand against the cultural and societal pressures, marketing, and media influences that push us to spend endless time, energy and money trying to fix ourselves--a race that has no finish line and only further increases our send of self-dissatisfaction and loathing. Yeah, no, not happening, is her battle cry.

In this wickedly smart and entertaining book, Karbo explores how self-improvery evolved from the provenance of men to women. Recast as consumers in the 1920s, women, it turned out, could be seduced into buying anything that might improve not just their lives, but their sense of self-worth. Today, we smirk at Mad Men-era ads targeting 1950s housewives--even while savvy marketers, aided and abetted by social media influencers, peddle skin care systems, skinny tea, and regimens that promise to deliver endless happiness. We're not simply seduced into dropping precious disposable income on empty promises; the underlying message is that we can't possibly know what's good for us, what we want, or who we should be. Calling BS, Karbo blows the lid off of this age-old trend and asks women to start embracing their awesomely imperfect selves.

There is no one more dangerous than a woman who doesn't care what anyone thinks of her. Yeah, No, Not Happening is a call to arms to build a posse of dangerous women who swear off self-improvement and its peddlers. A welcome corrective to our inner-critic, Karbo's manifesto will help women restore their sanity and reclaim their self-worth.

Brooke and Mary Rose are best friends. Brooke is the mother of a six-month-old. Mary Rose is pregnant. Brooke is married to Lyle, though, at times, she wonders why. Mary Rose would be married if Ward, the father of her child, weren't already. Ward and Brooke are cousins . . . A comedy of manners and biology, Karbo gives a laugh-out-loud look at the wonders of pregnancy and motherhood. It is a world where the women are fierce and strong and the men duck and cover; a world that is turned upside down when the expecting mother turns out a most unexpected child. Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me celebrates the courage and strength of women and the bonds that join them in the motherhood.

From Frida Kahlo and Elizabeth Taylor to Nora Ephron, Carrie Fisher, and Lena Dunham, this witty narrative explores what we can learn from the imperfect and extraordinary legacies of 29 iconic women who forged their own unique paths in the world.

Smart, sassy, and unapologetically feminine, this elegantly illustrated book is an ode to the bold and charismatic women of modern history. Best-selling author Karen Karbo (The Gospel According to Coco Chanel) spotlights the spirited rule breakers who charted their way with little regard for expectations: Amelia Earhart, Helen Gurley Brown, Edie Sedgwick, Hillary Clinton, Amy Poehler, and Shonda Rhimes, among others. Their lives--imperfect, elegant, messy, glorious--provide inspiration and instruction for the new age of feminism we have entered. Karbo distills these lessons with wit and humor, examining the universal themes that connect us to each of these mesmerizing personalities today: success and style, love and authenticity, daring and courage. Being difficult, Karbo reveals, might not make life easier. But it can make it more fulfilling--whatever that means for you.

In the Reader's Guide included in the back of the book, Karbo asks thought-provoking questions about how we relate to each woman that will make for fascinating book club conversation.

A fresh, revealing look at the artist who continues to inspire new generations of women.

Many of us have dog-eared copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in our kitchens or fondly remember watching episodes of The French Chef, but what was behind the enormous appeal of this ungainly, unlikely woman, who became a superstar in midlife and changed our approach to food and cooking forever? In the spirit of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel and How Georgia Became O'Keeffe, Julia Child Rules dissects the life of the sunny, unpretentious chef, author, cooking show star, and bon vivant, with an eye towards learning how we, too, can savor life. With her characteristic wit and flair, Karen Karbo takes us for a spin through Julia's life: from her idyllic childhood in California to her confusing young adulthood in New York; her years working for the OSS in Sri Lanka; her world class love affairs with Paris and Paul Child; and her decades as America's beloved French chef. Karbo weaves in her own personal experiences and stops for important life lessons along the way: how to live by your whims, make the world your oyster, live happily married, work hard, and enjoy a life of full immersion. It celebrates Julia's indomitable spirit and irrepressible joy, giving readers a taste of what it means to master the art of living.

Reluctantly back home in L.A. after 16 years in Africa, documentary filmmaker Mouse FitzHenry longs for the harsh, teeming jungle life her lens took in so lovingly. Wrenched Stateside by a family emergency, with her longtime boyfriend/collaborator in tow, Mouse is instantly beleaguered by a past she'd leapt continents to escape. In this rollicking novel, Karbo explores familiar subjects -- the phony glitz of Hollywood, the fairy tale lure of love and marriage -- with precision, compassion, and humor. Mouse's paramour, Tony, a Brit who calls her poppet, adores L.A. and all that it can do for him and his screenplay. Mouse, meanwhile, caving in to maternal pressure, agrees to marry Tony and then proceeds, with the help of an old flame, to film around her unwitting fianc a documentary on the entire process of their betrothal called Wedding March. A flawless, page-turning story emerges as Mouse and Tony manage -- often with hilarious subterfuge -- to keep their projects secret from one another. With its laugh-aloud moments and a cast of brilliantly drawn characters, this is a tale to treasure.