
The Best of Us
A Memoir
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $25.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Joyce Maynard
-
By:
-
Joyce Maynard
About this listen
In 2011, when she was in her late 50s, beloved author and journalist Joyce Maynard met the first true partner she had ever known. Jim wore a rakish hat over a good head of hair; he asked real questions and gave real answers; he loved to see Joyce shine, both in and out of the spotlight; and he didn't mind the mess she made in the kitchen. He was not the husband Joyce imagined, but he quickly became the partner she had always dreamed of.
Before they met, both had believed they were done with marriage, and even after they married, Joyce resolved that no one could alter her course of determined independence. Then, just after their one-year wedding anniversary, her new husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. During the 19 months that followed, as they battled his illness together, she discovered for the first time what it really meant to be a couple - to be a true partner and to have one.
This is their story. Charting the course through their whirlwind romance, a marriage cut short by tragedy, and Joyce's return to singleness on new terms, The Best of Us is a heart-wrenching, ultimately life-affirming reflection on coming to understand true love through the experience of great loss.
©2017 Joyce Maynard (P)2017 HighBridge, a Division of Recorded BooksPeople who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Good Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard, Rebecca Tuttle, Jeff Woodman
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were born on the same day, in the same small New Hampshire hospital, into families that could hardly have been less alike. Ruth Plank is an artist and a romantic with a rich, passionate, imaginative life. The last of five girls born to a gentle, caring farmer and his stolid wife, she yearns to soar beyond the confines of the land that has been her family's birthright for generations. Dana Dickerson is a scientist and realist whose faith is firmly planted in the natural world.
-
-
Loved this book!
- By DIANE on 03-04-11
By: Joyce Maynard
-
Under the Influence
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drinking cost Helen her marriage and custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Once an aspiring art photographer, she now makes ends meet by taking portraits of schoolchildren and working for a caterer. Recovering from her addiction, she spends lonely evenings checking out profiles on an online dating site. Weekend visits with her son are awkward. He's drifting away from her fast.
-
-
Appearances, words and actions can be deceiving
- By Jessica on 03-02-16
By: Joyce Maynard
-
At Home in the World
- A Memoir
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1972, Joyce Maynard, a freshman at Yale, published a cover story in The New York Times Magazine about life in the sixties. Among the many letters of praise, offers for writing assignments, and request for interviews was a one-page letter from the famously reclusive author, J.D. Salinger. At Home in the World is the story of a girl who loved and lived with J.D. Salinger, and the woman she became. A crucial turning point in Joyce Maynard's life occurred when her own daughter turned eighteen--the age Maynard was when Salinger first approached her.
-
-
Narration Distracted From Beautiful Writing
- By AMANDA on 04-18-16
By: Joyce Maynard
-
How the Light Gets In
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface. How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024).
-
-
Touching but over-long and very sentimental
- By David H on 08-25-24
By: Joyce Maynard
-
After Her
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Summer, 1979: A dry, hot Northern California school vacation stretches before Rachel and her younger sister, Patty - the daughters of a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome (and chronically unfaithful) detective father and the mother whose heart he broke. When we first meet her, Patty is 11 - a gangly kid who loves basketball and dogs and would do anything for her older sister, Rachel.
-
-
Endearing and Heartbreaking Sister Bond
- By tooonce72 on 09-21-13
By: Joyce Maynard
-
Count the Ways
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times best-selling author Joyce Maynard returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of her most acclaimed work in a mesmerizing story of a family - from the hopeful early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and the costly aftermath that ripples through all their lives
-
-
AA Deeply Felt Story that Sometimes Goes Too Far Afield…
- By Molly on 07-18-21
By: Joyce Maynard
-
The Good Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard, Rebecca Tuttle, Jeff Woodman
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were born on the same day, in the same small New Hampshire hospital, into families that could hardly have been less alike. Ruth Plank is an artist and a romantic with a rich, passionate, imaginative life. The last of five girls born to a gentle, caring farmer and his stolid wife, she yearns to soar beyond the confines of the land that has been her family's birthright for generations. Dana Dickerson is a scientist and realist whose faith is firmly planted in the natural world.
-
-
Loved this book!
- By DIANE on 03-04-11
By: Joyce Maynard
-
Under the Influence
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drinking cost Helen her marriage and custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Once an aspiring art photographer, she now makes ends meet by taking portraits of schoolchildren and working for a caterer. Recovering from her addiction, she spends lonely evenings checking out profiles on an online dating site. Weekend visits with her son are awkward. He's drifting away from her fast.
-
-
Appearances, words and actions can be deceiving
- By Jessica on 03-02-16
By: Joyce Maynard
-
At Home in the World
- A Memoir
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1972, Joyce Maynard, a freshman at Yale, published a cover story in The New York Times Magazine about life in the sixties. Among the many letters of praise, offers for writing assignments, and request for interviews was a one-page letter from the famously reclusive author, J.D. Salinger. At Home in the World is the story of a girl who loved and lived with J.D. Salinger, and the woman she became. A crucial turning point in Joyce Maynard's life occurred when her own daughter turned eighteen--the age Maynard was when Salinger first approached her.
-
-
Narration Distracted From Beautiful Writing
- By AMANDA on 04-18-16
By: Joyce Maynard
-
How the Light Gets In
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface. How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024).
-
-
Touching but over-long and very sentimental
- By David H on 08-25-24
By: Joyce Maynard
-
After Her
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Summer, 1979: A dry, hot Northern California school vacation stretches before Rachel and her younger sister, Patty - the daughters of a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome (and chronically unfaithful) detective father and the mother whose heart he broke. When we first meet her, Patty is 11 - a gangly kid who loves basketball and dogs and would do anything for her older sister, Rachel.
-
-
Endearing and Heartbreaking Sister Bond
- By tooonce72 on 09-21-13
By: Joyce Maynard
-
Count the Ways
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times best-selling author Joyce Maynard returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of her most acclaimed work in a mesmerizing story of a family - from the hopeful early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and the costly aftermath that ripples through all their lives
-
-
AA Deeply Felt Story that Sometimes Goes Too Far Afield…
- By Molly on 07-18-21
By: Joyce Maynard
-
The Bird Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.
-
-
Review of ‘The Bird Hotel’.
- By g. marks on 11-13-23
By: Joyce Maynard
-
Labor Day
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Wilson Bethel
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a manner evoking Ian McEwan's Atonement and Nick Hornby's About a Boy, acclaimed author Joyce Maynard weaves a beautiful, poignant tale of love, sex, adolescence, and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenage boy - and the man he later becomes - looking back at an unexpected encounter that begins one single, long, hot, life-altering weekend.
-
-
Good story but anti clamatic
- By Nana on 11-25-13
By: Joyce Maynard
-
The Usual Rules
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Amanda Friday
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a Tuesday morning in Brooklyn - a perfect September day. Wendy is heading to school, eager to make plans with her best friend, worried about how she looks, mad at her mother for not letting her visit her father in California. An hour later comes the news: A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center - her mother's office building. Through the eyes of Wendy, we gain entrance to the world rarely shown by those who documented the events of that one terrible day: a family's slow and terrible realization that Wendy's mother has died, and their struggle to go on with their lives.
-
-
Narration ruined a good book
- By Susie Q on 05-17-23
By: Joyce Maynard
-
The Cloud Chamber
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joel Johnstone
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The minute the school bus carrying Nate Chance and his little sister, Junie, pulls up in front of his family's farmhouse, Nate can tell something's terribly wrong: Somehow his father has been wounded by a gunshot. Nate sees him stagger across the yard, then watches as the police take him away.
-
-
good
- By Steven on 11-10-05
By: Joyce Maynard
-
To Die For
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Piper Goodeve, Carly Robins, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Local weather reporter Suzanne Maretto craves nothing more than to transcend life at her suburban cable television news station and follow in the footsteps of her idol: Barbara Walters. When she concludes that her unglamorous husband is getting in the way of her dream of stardom, the solution seems obvious: Get rid of him. She seduces a 15-year-old admirer, Jimmy, and persuades him to do her dirty work. Mission accomplished, Suzanne takes to the airwaves in her new role as grieving widow, in search of a TV deal. If that means selling Jimmy down the river, she’s ready.
-
-
Great movie, even better book
- By RueRue on 12-19-23
By: Joyce Maynard
-
The Influencer
- A Short Story
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tammy Partridge and her boyfriend, Kevin, are on a photo-ready road trip across America in pursuit of influencer fame. Only a couple hundred followers so far, including Roxanne, a superfan of the beautiful young couple. But when Tammy’s body is discovered in the Utah wilderness, and Kevin is nowhere to be found, the picture-perfect adventure suddenly goes wrong—and viral, with three million followers and counting. Motives are questionable. Conspiracy theories cloud the dark corners of the internet. As everyone spins their own version of the truth, reality is getting harder to see.
-
-
im litterly 3 min in and I'm irritated.
- By liz on 02-20-24
By: Joyce Maynard
-
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
- By: Emma Carey
- Narrated by: Emma Carey
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, Emma Carey was a regular young adult who would wake up and go about their day on autopilot, someone who would look at a sunset and feel unaffected, someone who was living, but not really alive. That is, until something happened that enabled her to really see life for the gift it is. Emma was in a skydiving accident that made her a paraplegic. This book is not just about Emma's fall from the sky and how she learned to walk without ever regaining feeling in her legs but also about the beliefs and ideas that helped her survive.
-
-
Tenacity
- By stefr on 05-01-25
By: Emma Carey
-
Internal Combustion
- The Story of a Marriage and a Murder in the Motor City
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Janey Ivey
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Mother's Day night, 2004, award-winning fourth grade teacher Nancy Seaman left the Tudor home she shared with her husband of 32 years in the gated community of Farmington Hills, near Detroit, Michigan, and drove in a driving rain storm to Home Depot, to purchase a hatchet. Three days later, police discovered the mutilated body of Bob Seaman - a successful auto industry engineer, softball coach and passionate collector of vintage Mustangs - in the back of the family's Ford Explorer.
-
-
Gripping account of a gruesome murder in an average middle class neighborhood
- By NRo on 10-30-24
By: Joyce Maynard
-
Journal of a Solitude
- By: May Sarton
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
May Sarton's parrot chatters away as Sarton looks out the window at the rain and contemplates returning to her "real" life - not friends, not even love, but writing. In her bravest and most revealing memoir, Sarton casts her keenly observant eye on both the interior and exterior worlds. She shares insights about everyday life in the quiet New Hampshire village of Nelson, the desire for friends, and need for solitude - both an exhilarating and terrifying state.
-
-
Perfect!
- By Kathryn on 08-07-20
By: May Sarton
-
The Clock Winder
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Suzanne Pirret
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mrs. Emerson, widowed with seven adult children, lives alone in crumbling Victorian mansion outside Baltimore with only a collection of antique clocks to keep her company. Elizabeth Abbott - 23 years old, aimless, bohemian, and beautiful - leads a vagabond lifestyle until she happens upon Mrs. Emerson's home and convinces the older woman to hire her as a handyman. When three of the strange, idiosyncratic Emerson children return to their childhood home for a visit, they are irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth.
-
-
Too many words
- By Steven M. on 04-30-25
By: Anne Tyler
-
Chorus
- By: Rebecca Kauffman
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The seven Shaw siblings have long been haunted by two early and profoundly consequential events. Told in turns from the early twentieth century through the 1950s, the story builds as each sibling relays their own versions of the memories that surround both their mother’s mysterious death and the circumstances of one sister’s scandalous teenage pregnancy. As they move into adulthood, the siblings assume new roles: caretaker to their aging father, addict, enabler, academic, decorated veteran, widow, and mothers and fathers to the next generation.
-
-
beautifully rendered family, sans nostalgia
- By T. A. Daniel on 12-12-24
By: Rebecca Kauffman
-
A Worse Place than Hell
- How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation
- By: John Matteson
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country's law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American.
-
-
Fantastic Intertwining!
- By Peter H. Christensen on 09-02-21
By: John Matteson
What listeners say about The Best of Us
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 08-16-24
The strength of love in adversity
Like all of the books I have read by Joyce Maynard thus far numbering 6 and counting this was a beautifully told story of family, relationships, great love and great loss. The story of Joyce and Jimmy is so incredibly touching and a reminder of what those vows really mean when the worst happens. I will carry this story with me for a long time. Also a shoutout to Dr. Ron Weiss, a wonderful and compassionate physician I have had the honor of knowing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lynn Labe
- 01-01-20
Lovely memoir of late love and caretaking
This book is really special in many ways. The beginning is not great- dating stories that are kind of shallow- but it picks up when Joyce meets her man. A sweet tale of love, loss and taking care of her soulmate through his illness.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- kathartis
- 08-10-24
Caring and loving people
Open and honest love and respect for each other! Open heart and soul in sharing relationships
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- L. Pavela
- 02-24-25
Amazing writing
This is an amazing story, and the author is so self reflective. She may not have meant to do this, but she made me Wass roommate myself more times than any self-help book has ever done. I also plan to read everything else she has ever written as a result of this one book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Elisa R. Goodman
- 08-21-18
This memoir sizzles with great love and pain...
Having been recently made aware of Joyce Maynard through a Creative Live class she was teaching on Memoir,
I was immediately drawn to her and downloaded her book on audible which I could not stop listening to. As an artist and creative writer myself, I identified with much of her mercurial and independent spirit. But when the story takes a dark turn as her late in life soulmate Jim, found himself battling Pancreatic Cancer --- my past life as a caretaker to my own husband's horrific ordeal with a different kind of cancer came to haunt me like a dream. The depth of a great love, the intimacies and terror involved in watching someone you love waste away and the creativity it births to shape and fill that emotional void in order to make sense of your life, totally resonated with me. Both of our husbands died young (mine was 58, her husband Jim was 64), were both attorneys, had strong moral compasses that always had them doing the right thing, loved us fiercely, were special souls that were unfairly dealt a cruel fate. "The Best of Us" is a love letter to those who might be open to finding love again, living passionately with great abandon and experiencing the gift that sometimes, when we are open to receiving, miracles will happen.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- sandra b.
- 02-14-20
The Best of Us
This is the first book I’ve ever heard on Audible. A friend recommended it because I had recently reconnected with an old lover and it’s serious. I’m 59 and he 61. I loved the descriptive nature of this story, and loved to live vicariously through her trips and travels. I loved their love story and watching her honest struggles of what commitment meant. My mother died of cancer and this gave me insight to what she and my father went through. I cried as I learned of his diagnoses, had to actually pull off the road. This is an honest, funny, heart-wrenching story. I loved hearing the vows at the end. Not sure if that was actually Jim’s voice, I hope it was, but that part really helped me to identify with and come to know the man.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mazariegos
- 10-04-17
A remarkable book
This is a must read for anyone with a life partner. Joyce's story teaches us all about cherishing the time we have with people we love.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Susannah 111
- 12-15-22
A devastating book
As a recent widow, I found the story of Joyce Maynard and her husband’s love, cancer diagnosis and death horribly sad. I cried many times while listening. Perhaps it was cathartic. It is books like these that touch us so deeply that stay in the memory forever.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- purplepurchase
- 09-08-24
Gorgeous, heartbreaking, inspiring
Thank you Joyce Maynard for sharing your true and precious story of love and loss. For those of us who have gone through this, your words are a friend in the dark. For those who have not experienced this sort of loss or the illness of a spouse, this story will teach you to love better and see the gift of everyday. I highly recommend this book. Be prepared to nod, shout, cry, and feel gratitude for hearing hard and beautiful truths.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 03-01-25
A beautiful love
Very open & honest memoir of love, marriage and the journey through pancreatic cancer. Very touching and heartfelt.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!