• The Best of Us

  • A Memoir
  • By: Joyce Maynard
  • Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
  • Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (203 ratings)

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The Best of Us  By  cover art

The Best of Us

By: Joyce Maynard
Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
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Publisher's summary

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 Books

What listeners say about The Best of Us

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I love Joyce Maynard- I'm a longtime fan

I can't remember how I discovered this author but I'm so glad I did. She has a wonderful way of creating images in my mind.
This is a very sad book, obviously, but I love her writing so much and she didn't disappoint.
Actually she focused a lot more on life than death in this book.
She certainly made me cherish my husband in ways that I often forget in the every day business of living. I only wish she could have had more time with Jim.
I googled to see if I could find any of her wedding photos and I did. They looked radiant and so happy only to have a very abbreviated time together.
Still, she writes about it magnificently, as she always does, no matter what she's writing about.
I love her narration. I wouldn't want anyone else to express themselves the way she does.
I've missed very few of her books and will eventually get to all of them.
I love this lady.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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I loved the honesty of real life

I actually heard Joyce on Dr. Drew Pinsky’s podcast. Something intrigued me to listen to the book. I enjoyed it. An eye opener to pancreatic cancer and how important every minute with a loved one really is.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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A true life love story

This is a true love story. It's not a romance, although there certainly are many romantic moments, and it's not a tragedy, even though there is a great deal of sadness and loss. Anyone who has been in a committed, loving relationship will relate to this beautiful story of what it means to love another person without reservation. Beautifully read by the author, which makes the story even more powerful.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A moving testament

A moving testament to the human struggle to find love, and make sense of what happens throughout life. This memoir is personal to the author, but also to anyone with a heart. Read it, learn from it, and grow . Moving and powerful, gentle and true, it's a book you will not forget.

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7 people found this helpful

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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.

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6 people found this helpful

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Later in Life Love Story = INSPIRING

Joyce Maynard's description of meeting, marrying, and eventually losing her beloved husband somehow ends up leaving me with warm feelings. Perhaps it's because you can hear how he was THE love of her life and she's better off for what they had-- however shorter than they would have liked it to be. A story I will remember.

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5 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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I wanted to love this story...

unfortunately I couldn't finish it. And it's hard for me to not finish a book. But this is not a story of "us" it's really all about Joyce. Maybe it's her tone reading it, maybe it's me because the reviews for this book are great. But I just found the story to be so one-sided and Joyce so self-absorbed that I couldn't get into it.

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5 people found this helpful

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Well read

the book was intriguing to me. I listened to it when I had to drive alone. A gentle book I was anxious to return to.

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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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.

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3 people found this helpful

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Oh, my heart...

To be completely honest, I did not want to read this book. I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to listen to the hell that cancer inflicts on a person. You see, someone that I dearly love is experiencing this very thing and it is crucial that I understand the journey. Joyce Maynard has written so eloquently and beautifully the love story than unfolded between she and Jim. This book is also painfully honest and raw at times. Of course, I laughed and cried but more importantly, I learned. Joyce’s narration of her own story was a gift. Definitely worth your time.

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2 people found this helpful