The Best of Friends: Martha and Me

by Mariana Pasternak

Book Overview

Set in a world of luxury and power, this is the tell-all story of two remarkable women and a friendship that changed both their lives forever.For more than two decades, Mariana Pasternak and Martha... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061661287
• ISBN13: 9780061661280
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The Best of Friends: Martha and Me

Well written, interesting. Author Mariana Pasternak is very intelligent and I learned a lot, vacationing vicariously through her book.

I Loved this book

This book was well written and super interesting. It all read as perfectly true to life and insightful. Easy to see how a regular person could be caught up in Martha's world but, not being Martha, it could also be difficult to be exposed to that grand life without the cash to fund it. Plus Martha didn't seem too inclined to share or even too generous. The only part that seemed a little hazy was the legal wrangling at the end. Somehow none of that rang exactly true to me. The author remembered the color of the ducks on Martha's socks 15 years before but couldn't remember who said what about the stock deal. I read a lot and this book had me rushing home from work to read the next chapter. It was a fun look into an interesting life.

Great Story of Friends~

If you're looking for gossip and dirt on Martha, this is not the book for you. It was a great story of 2 women and their 20 year long friendship. Their travels, kids, marriages, work, lives and loves. It really shows you how complicated women are as friends. It is more a story of the author's fascinating life, with Martha as a side character. I loved the book and recommend it for all women, especially if you want to hear a bit about the real life of Martha Stewart. It seems very honest instead of gossipy. Great read,thoroughly enjoyed it!

Much More Than a Book about Martha Stewart - A Captivating Look in the Private Lives of the Rich an

This honest well written memoir is more than a book about Martha Stewart. It is a travelogue, a social diary and a story of women friendship. This page turner is chock full of intimate details and entertaining glimpses into the lives of the rich and famous. Although these two best friends seem to "have it all", in real life they struggle with the same issues all other women worry about - men, family, and career. Through hilarious stories, the author offers us a look into the real Martha Stewart sharing secret hopes and disappointments, passions and vulnerabilities. Every woman will find herself in this cautionary tale of female friendship. Loaded with historical and literary references, everyone attracted to Martha's life-style will feel as if living the pulse of Martha's world. Women who like to travel will follow dream-itineraries, women who love entertaining will devour the nuances of Martha dinner parties and women who like to decorate will enjoy the bargain hunting and antiquing tales. Whether you are a Martha fan or not, you will be absorbed by this captivating tale.

Not a "tell-all" at all; quite an interesting read, Mariana is more interesting than Marth

Ms. Pasternak has written a well-considered memoir of her friendship with Martha Stewart and I was pleasantly surprised that this is really her story; Marianna's story. Everyone in America (I suspect the rest of the world couldn't care less about Martha Stewart) has their take on Martha but this well-written work does not do a hatchet job on Stewart, while it is certainly clear about the author's view of Martha's character and personality flaws. Marianna's credentials as a "martha-insider" cannot be questioned our doubted. But ultimately, this would not make her book better or worse. What makes it a fine book is her depth of perception, her ability to communicate in writing her own misgivings about taking on Martha as a friend and sticking with it for many years and her many self-realizations over those years about her own motives in being Martha's friend. The author examines scrupulously her own reasons for working hard at this friendship and in several key places in the story, she has some terrifying insight into Ms. Stewart's strange personality, as in key scenes where they are in dangerous, and even life-threatening situations where Martha freezes up and closes in on herself and refuses to help others or be of any use at all in a crisis. I was chilled when I read these episodes and reminded of many of Ms. Stewart's least attractive mannerisms and qualities in her public appearances that, for me at least, give the author's descriptions a solid ring of truth. Before I read this book, I thought Ms. Stewart has some serious psychoses and neuroses that are evident in her lack of personal warmth exhibited on many occasions offset as much as possible by phony heartiness and charm that has always made her attractions for others lost on me. Admitting this, I didn't pick up this book to get "dirt" on Martha. Many people may and they may or may not be satisfied as dishing dirt is not really the point of this book. This is a book for intelligent adults with an open mind. The story of the investigation and trial is concisely told and the climax of the book, but it is not told sensationally. Ms. Pasternak gives us, instead, a picture of what it feels like to be progressively drawn into a maelstrom of media attention and bad press that can destroy innocent people who had nothing to do with a crime. I hope that Ms. Pasternak's book gets a fair review in the press which brings out it's true qualities and doesn't hype the sensationalism. Already in the day before I got the book, there were stupid press notices about a few paragraphs showing Martha's husband-hunting obsession. From the little press on this you'd think that was the only "good stuff" in the book, which is a shame because the book tells a human tale that we can all learn something from; how to choose your friends and how to know when you give so much and get so little, maybe it's time to re-evaluate. The hero-worship given to media stars in the US stems from a lot of personal neurosis and hy