The Best of Friends - by Ginger Mauney & Sara James (Paperback)

About the Book

From the Back Cover

Transplanting Southern roots to southern Africa, Ginger Mauney has earned the acceptance of a troop of baboons, unraveled mysteries of life and death in an elephant herd, and raised her young son in the wilds of Etosha National Park. During her career as a television journalist, Sara James paid her own way to cover the war in Nicaragua, exposed slavery in Sudan, plunged to the grave site of the Titanic, but struggled to balance work with marriage and motherhood. Though the two lead seemingly opposite lives, there is much they share. A hometown in Richmond, Virginia, an attraction to life on the razor's edge, and a past. Now, in this heartfelt memoir, Sara and Ginger alternately narrate the story of their twenties, thirties, and forties through the lens of a friendship that has spanned thousands of miles and more than thirty years, and reveal how they dared to reinvent their lives, just as it seemed that everything was falling apart.

Review Quotes

"James and Mauney write about their friendship . . . in a way that will leave you saying 'Me too.'" -- Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Their book...pays tribute to the advances that feminism brought...and to the enduring value of female friendship. -- Publishers Weekly

"Filled with...concerns about love, work, men, marriage and motherhood...that could be a favorite of women's reading groups." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Two great friends, two fascinating individual stories, and a memoir that reads like a novel..." -- Lian Dolan, author of Satellite Sisters' UnCommon Senses

"Rich tales...A unique window into modern women's quest for meaning and calm in an ever more chaotic world." -- Gwendolyn Bounds, author of Little Chapel on the River: A Pub, A Town, and the Search for What Matters Most

"The Bach Minuet of memoirs...two vastly different stories...woven into the other to form a single, gorgeous melody." -- Deborah Copaken Kogan, author of Shutterbabe and the forthcoming Suicide Wood

"With grit, honesty, and humor...Their engrossing tale of friendship celebrates the importance of having a confidante." -- More Magazine, HOT SUMMER READS

"An honest, funny, often wrenching memoir that follows childhood friends...as they...withstand the ups and downs of marriage and kids." -- Parenting Magazine

"Dateline NBC's Sara James and her great friend Ginger Mauney have mastered the art of staying connected." -- Today Show

"Sometimes the most unlikely people become best friends...a wonderful book." -- CBS This Morning