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.

In this thrilling and candid memoir, world record-holding and controversial Big Wave surfer Garrett McNamara chronicles his emotional quest to ride the most formidable waves on earth. Garrett McNamara-affectionately known as GMac-set the world record for the sport, surfing a seventy-eight-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal in 2011, a record he smashed two years later at the same break. Propelled by the challenge and promise of bigger, more difficult waves, this adrenaline-fueled loner and polarizing figure travels the globe to ride the most dangerous swells the oceans have to offer, from calving glaciers to hurricane swells. But what motivates McNamara to go to such extremes-to risk everything for one thrilling ride? Is riding giant waves the ultimate exercise in control or surrender? Personal and emotional, readers will know GMac as never before, seeing for the first time the personal alongside the professional in an exciting, intimate look at what drives this inventive, iconoclastic man. Surfing awesome giants isn't just thrill seeking, he explains-it's about vanquishing fears and defeating obstacles past and present. Surfers and non-surfers alike will embrace McNamara's story-as they have William Finnegan's Barbarian Days-an its intimate look at the enigmatic pursuit of riding waves, big and small. Hound of the Sea is a record of perseverance, passion, and healing. Thoughtful, suspenseful, and spiritually profound, McNamara reveals the beautiful soul of surfing through the eyes of one of its most daring and devoted disciples.

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.

Now in paperback, this witty, irreverent narrative explores what we can learn from the extraordinary legacies of 30 iconic women--from Frida Kahlo and Liz Taylor to Nora Ephron and Lena Dunham--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 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.

What does your family consist of? Stepdaughter? Stepson? Ex-wife? Ex-husband? This book contains stories of a group of women who gather periodically to blow off steam, and have a few laughs about the impossible and stubbornly persistent phenomenon that is the ex-relationship.

So you got the guy on the big white horse, and the beautiful little mermaids, and the picket fence, and your life isn' t . . . perfect in every imaginable way?
You're not alone. In 1997, Gabrielle Reece married the man of her dreams--professional surfer Laird Hamilton--in a flawless Hawaiian ceremony. Naturally, the couple filed for divorce four years later.
In the end they worked it out, but not without the ups and downs, minor hiccups, and major setbacks that beset every modern family.
With hilarious stories, wise insights, and concrete takeaways on topics ranging from navigating relationship issues to aging gracefully to getting smart about food, "My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper "is the brutally honest, wickedly funny, and deeply helpful portrait of the humor, grace, and humility it takes to survive the happily ever after.

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.

Minerva Clarke is thirteen. She worries about having a Gigantor butt and being a Freak Show Loser. Or worse, if that's possible. She wants to be just a fraction as gorgeous as her cousin Jordan but has begun to accept that this may never happen, when events take a turn for the peculiar. Minerva is (accidentally) electrocuted by her brother and survives mostly unscathed, but for one strange side effect. She doesn't have hang ups. In fact, she can't remember what she even used to worry about. So when Minerva's perfect cousin Jordan is arrested under bizarre circumstances, the new, bold Minerva finds herself investigating a murky murder mystery.