Non-Fiction Books

The new superstars in sports are women, and pro beach volleyball player Gabrielle Reece is the hottest of them all. At six-foot-three, 170 pounds, Gabby Reece is at once beautiful and brutish, feminine and rowdy, accessible and intimidating--a woman who is exploding female stereotypes and redefining our image of the female athlete. "A young girl doesn't get many chances to exercise the character muscle via sports, whereas for young boys, it's part of their everyday lives. For girls, it's especially good for them to be forced to work as a team with other girls, to work together under every possible condition--winning, losing, tired, grumpy, happy. It forces them to deal with unpleasant, ungracious emotions and get over it. It forces girls to rely on each other. It gives them confidence in other girls, which ultimately gives them confidence in themselves." "Everything a woman does has an emotional component. Paying attention to my emotional side without surrendering to it is one of the toughest parts of playing professional sports." "I don't like this 'Fear of Being Big' thing because it feeds into the general female thing of wanting to be less--less powerful, less assertive, less demanding, less opinionated, less present, less big."

When Karen Karbo's father, a charming, taciturn Clint Eastwood type who lives in a triple-wide in the Nevada desert, is diagnosed with lung cancer, his only daughter rises to the challenge of caring for him. Neither of them is exactly cut out for the job. As Dick Karbo's disease progresses, Karen finds herself sometimes the responsible adult, sometimes a stubborn teenager all over again. But in the end, what father and daughter discover more than anything is the love and the toughness that makes them alike.

How to Hepburn , Karen Karbo's sleek, contemporary reassessment of one of America's greatest icons, takes us on a spin through the great Kate's long, eventful life, with an aim toward seeing what we can glean from the First Lady of Cinema. One part How Proust Can Change Your Life and one part Why Sinatra Matters , How to Hepburn teases some unexpected lessons from the life of a woman whose freewheeling, pants-wearing determination redefined the image of the independent woman while eventually endearing her to the world. This witty, provocative gem is full of no-nonsense Hepburn-style commentary on subjects such as: making denial work for you; the importance of being brash, facing fear, and always having an aviator in your life; learning why and how to lie; the benefits of discretion; making the most of a dysfunctional relationship; and the power of forgiving your parents. Thrilling fans of the notoriously independent actress, award-winner Karen Karbo presents a gusty guidebook to harnessing your inner Hepburn, and living life on your own terms. Karen Karbo is the author of three novels, two works of nonfiction, and a memoir, all of which were named New York Times Notable Books. The Stuff of Life was a People Critic's Choice, a selection of the Satellite Sisters Radio Book Club, and winner of the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. A past winner of the General Electric Young Writer Award, Karen is in addition the recipient of an NEA grant. Her essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Redbook, Elle, Vogue, Esquire, the New Republic, and Self. She lives in Portland, Oregon .

NOW IN PAPERBACK! A modern look at the life of a fashion icon―with practical life lessons for women of all ages Delving into the 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.

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.

New York Times bestselling fitness expert and beach volleyball pro Gabby Reece uses her own less-than-perfect life to skewer fairy tale notions of perfect motherhood and marriage in this “exuberant, right-on, and humorous hand-holder to confronting the crises and celebrating the victories” ( Elle ). 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.

In this thrilling and candid memoir, world record-holding and controversial Big Wave surfer Garrett McNamara--star and subject of the HBO mini-series, 100 Foot Wave-- chronicles his emotional quest to ride the most formidable waves on earth. Garrett McNamara set the world record for the sport, surfing a seventy-eight-foot wave in Nazaré, 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.

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.

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.