Frank McCourt
Paperback | Pages: 452 pages Rating: 4.11 | 515002 Users | 11458 Reviews
Mention Books To Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt #1)
| Original Title: | Angela's Ashes: A Memoir |
| ISBN: | 0007205236 (ISBN13: 9780007205233) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Frank McCourt #1 |
| Characters: | Frank McCourt |
| Setting: | Limerick(Ireland) New York State(United States) Ireland |
| Literary Awards: | Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1997), American Booksellers Book Of The Year Award for Adult Trade (1997), Audie Award for Nonfiction, Abridged (1997), Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography (1996), Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (1997) National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography/Autobiography (1996) |
Narration In Pursuance Of Books Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt #1)
Imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion. This is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy-- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling-- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors--yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness. Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.Specify Of Books Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt #1)
| Title | : | Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt #1) |
| Author | : | Frank McCourt |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 452 pages |
| Published | : | October 3rd 2005 by Harper Perennial (first published September 5th 1996) |
| Categories | : | Womens Fiction. Chick Lit. Fiction. Romance. Contemporary. Adult Fiction. Adult. Humor |
Rating Of Books Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt #1)
Ratings: 4.11 From 515002 Users | 11458 ReviewsNotice Of Books Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt #1)
But the worst offender of the last twenty years has to be the uniquely meretricious drivel that constitutes "Angela's Ashes". Dishonest at every level, slimeball McCourt managed to parlay his mawkish maunderings to commercial success, presumably because the particular assortment of rainsodden cliches hawked in the book not only dovetails beautifully with the stereotypes lodged in the brain of every American of Irish descent, but also panders to the lummoxes collective need to feel superiorIt's been ten years since I've read this book. Like everyone else I was floored by it when it first came out. But time and age have made me wiser.I don't think it's stood the test of time and the more I think of it... my grandmother is right. It's a one-sided, depressing view of life in Ireland. "Woah is me..." is the book in a nutshell. This book simply has you marinate in negativity. Maybe I've read too much Phillip Roth in the meantime and compared to his characters this book seems too whiny
Angelas Ashes is a beautifully written, painfully honest account of Frank McCourts childhood in Limerick, Ireland.Franks parents, both Irish, met in New York and began their family there. McCourt himself was born in New York, but this was in the 1930s and the depression hurt everyone and everywhere, especially immigrant Irish with no resources.So back to Ireland they go to live near his maternal grandmother. 1930s Limerick was not much better than New York, especially for Franks father who spoke
Before I get too deep into my review, let me just say this: "Angela's Ashes" is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. That said, it is also fascinating, heartbreaking, searingly honest narration told in the face of extreme poverty and alcoholism. This absolutely entrancing memoir follows an Irish-American-Irish-American (more on this later) boy who comes of age during the Depression and the War years in a country gripped in the stranglehold of the Catholic Church, tradition, rampant
If you had the luck of the IrishYoud be sorry and wish you was deadIf you had the luck of the IrishThen youd wish you was English insteadHow can ONE book be so WONDERFUL and so HORRIBLE at the same time? I have no idea. But this book is both. Big time. Its difficult to imagine anything worse than a childhood crushed under the oppressive conditions of abject poverty, relentless filth and unmitigated suffering. The childhood described in this book is the worst Ive ever encountered. The lucky
I have to admit that I didn't love the first third of this book but I realize the information gained there made me enjoy the rest even more. At times, this book was a beautiful dark comedy, "There is nothing like a wake for having a good time," and I think that some day I might make my kids promise to die for Ireland. Near the end, the young boy is trying to figure out what adultery is by looking it up in the dictionary; he is forced to look up new words with each explanation he finds and the
Couldn't bear it. Whiney, self-obsessed and smacked of disingenuity. Using misery, either yours (imagined) or others (purloined) to make money seems to be the height/depth of cheap shots. Someone once told me of a review of the book that they had read somewhere'Baby born, baby died, baby born, baby died, baby born, baby died, baby born, baby died; it rained'.Admittedy there was more to it than that, however I read it a long time ago and the gloom of the misery and rain hangs still over the whole
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