Karen Karbo Books in Order
Karen Karbo has written 17 books, published between 1990 and 2020. The first book is Trespassers Welcome Here (1990) and the newest is Yeah, No. Not Happening. (2020). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 17
- Published
- 1990–2020
- Pages on record
- 3,156 in 12 of 17 books
- Reading time
- 53–79 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 3,156 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 12 of 17 titles with a page count on record.
The Minerva Clark Mystery titles, beginning with Minerva Clark Gets a Clue (2005), sit in Karen Karbo's catalogue beside novels, memoir and biography. Karbo writes fiction and non-fiction and works as a journalist. The New York Times chose each of Karbo's three comic novels, Trespassers Welcome Here among them, as a Notable Book. Between 2007 and 2013 Karbo produced the Kick Ass Women guides, blending biography and self-help around figures such as Coco Chanel, Julia Child, Georgia O'Keeffe and Katharine Hepburn. In Praise of Difficult Women came out in 2018.
How many Karen Karbo books are there?
Karen Karbo has 17 books, released between 1990 and 2020. 3 of them belong to the Minerva Clark Mystery series.
Karen Karbo Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 17 Karen Karbo books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 1Trespassers Welcome Here1990 · 190 pages · confirmed 1/419901901/4
- 2The Diamond Lane1991 · 422 pages · confirmed 1/419914221/4
- 3Big Girl in the Middle1997 · 256 pages · confirmed 1/419972561/4
- 4Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me2000 · 218 pages · confirmed 1/420002181/4
- 5Generation Ex2001 · 244 pages · confirmed 1/420012441/4
- 620052561/4
- 72006–1/4
- 82007–1/4
- 9The Stuff of Life2008 · 224 pages · confirmed 1/420082241/4
- 10How to Hepburn2008 · 193 pages · confirmed 1/420081931/4
- 11The Gospel According to Coco Chanel2009 · 247 pages · confirmed 1/420092471/4
- 12How Georgia Became O'Keeffe2011 · 256 pages · confirmed 1/420112561/4
- 132013–1/4
- 14My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper2013 · confirmed 1/42013–1/4
- 15Hound of the Sea2016 · 304 pages · confirmed 1/420163041/4
- 16In Praise of Difficult Women2018 · 346 pages · confirmed 1/420183461/4
- 17Yeah, No. Not Happening.2020 · confirmed 1/42020–1/4
Karen Karbo books grouped by series
Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.
Minerva Clark Mystery in order
3 booksJulia Child Rules Non-Fiction
1 book1 title published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Standalone books
13 books13 Karen Karbo titles here are not listed as part of any series.
Do you have to read Karen Karbo books in order?
You only need to read Karen Karbo books in order within the Minerva Clark Mystery series, which holds 3 of the 17 Karen Karbo books listed here. The numbered table above gives every book in publication order.
Where to start with Karen Karbo
Start with Trespassers Welcome Here (1990), the earliest published title.
What is the newest Karen Karbo book?
Yeah, No. Not Happening. (2020) is the newest Karen Karbo book released so far.
Is there a new Karen Karbo book coming?
No next Karen Karbo book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Karen Karbo at a glance
- No recent titles
- The newest Karen Karbo title on record dates from 2020, 6 years ago. No later title is catalogued.
- Release pace
- Karen Karbo books have appeared about one every 2 years on average.
- Length
- 3,156 pages across the 12 of 17 books with a recorded length, a median of 252 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Karen Karbo books, 8 of 17, were published in the 2000s.
What the Karen Karbo books are about
16 of the 17 Karen Karbo books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: biography is tagged on 5 of 16. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Biography 5 of 16 books
- Family life 2 of 16 books
- Man-woman relationships 2 of 16 books
- Psychology 2 of 16 books
- Self help 2 of 16 books
- Wives 2 of 16 books