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Angela's Ashes: A Memoir of a Childhood (Stranger Than!)
 
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Angela's Ashes: A Memoir of a Childhood (Stranger Than!) (Paperback)

by Frank McCourt (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (177 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: HarperPerennial; (Reissue) edition (5 Feb 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007241763
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007241767
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (177 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 837,611 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." Welcome, then, to the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. It turns out that prospects weren't so great back in the old country either--not with Malachy for a father. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting clichés about drunken Irish manhood are based. Mix in abject poverty, and frequent death and illness, and you have all the makings of a truly difficult early life. Fortunately, in McCourt's able hands it also has all the makings of a compelling memoir. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'An astonishing book!completely mesmerising -- you can open it almost at random and find writing to make you gasp.' Independent 'The most remarkable thing about Frank McCourt, apart from his survival, is his lack of sorrowfulness. "Angela's Ashes" sings with irreverent Limerick wit. It makes you smile at the triumph of the storyteller, a tougher specimen who escaped Limerick's teeming alleys through intelligence and cunning and lived to tell the tale.' The Times 'Once opened, this brilliant and seductive book will not let you rest until Frank emerges, more or less reared, at the close of boyhood.' Thomas Keneally, author of 'Schindler's List.' 'Frank McCourt's lyrical Irish voice will draw comparison to Joyce. It's that seductive, that hilarious. In the annals of memoir, his name will be writ large.' Mary Karr, author of 'The Liar's Club'. 'I was moved and dazzled by the sombre and lively beauty of this book; it is a story of survival and growth beyond all odds; a chronicle of surprising triumphs, written in language that is always itself triumphant.' Mary Gordon, author of 'The Shadow Man.'
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Customer Reviews

177 Reviews
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3 star:
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2 star:
 (6)
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (177 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Childhood ashes, 9 Jan 2006
By Bogdana Voicu (Dubai, United Arab Emirates) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Angela's Ashes (Paperback)
It was amazing to fin a book in a brand new book shop in a brand new shopping mall in the Middle East... to find a book with nice covers, sad covers, brown covers, with a small boy leaning against a wall... somehow, I felt the need to grab it and read it, it looked so European that I could not refuse this pleasure to myself. But AFTER readng it, I was simply amazed... it is so sad that you just hope it was just a story... except that you read on the front page that the book is dedicated to Frank McCourt's brothers, who carry the names from the book, and THEN you get the whole poit... it is completely and emptying true. It is all about a child's view on his own childhood... pertinent and intellingent and full of refined humour... you really do not know whether the garndmother is heartless or just the funniest character ever... you could not say whether the father is to be hated or accepted and even liked (he is a drunk, inded, but he is a nice one, somehow)... and who could tell if Angela herself is a good mother (she cries in despair for her children) or she just neglects them and lets them be dirty and smelly... the characters are strongly individualised, you just love each and every one of them.
In a nhutshell... i offered this book as a Crhristmas present to one of my best friends... she loves it and now it is her favourite... I still have a few more pages to read, and I have a feeling that I will always, but always remember details of this book. Recommendation? Read this book alone, isolated by the world... you will get into it like never before with a book.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Cathartic - Cathartic -Cathartic. Amen., 25 Jun 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Angela's Ashes (Paperback)
Dear Frank, your book Angela's Ashes is the book I intended to write, but never had the "guts" to tackle. Like you, I lived my early years in desperate and unrelenting poverty in Englands equivalent of Limerick - Catholic Widnes. Every word, sentence, and paragragh described my childhood so unerringly that as I read I felt as though I was locked in discussion with you. Which in truth I was, inasmuch as I found myself crying and angrily exclaiming in agreement as page after page told "my story". Cathartic - Cathartic. Thank you for proving that human spirit can rise above and triumph over poverty and degradation imposed through the sacraments of manic religious indoctrinators. Just how long are the starving children of this world expected to accept near death in this life for a reward from God if, and when they reach heaven? My intended version would not match yours for humour, because I just couldn't recall much that was humourous about those times. Your version was a revelation to me and caused me for the first time ever, to consider forgiving my sworn enemies the Catholic Church and it's teachers, and to get on with and enjoy whatever time is left to me. I close by telling you that, through reading your books my family have at last gained some insight into what "ails me".

Thank you.

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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A never to be forgotten story., 28 April 2008
By Leeds lass "The Banker" (England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Angela's Ashes (Paperback)
Much praise for this book, and the movie is even better. Well done to frank mccourt for finding the words..
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Too depressing
I can recognise that this is a well-written book, and a fascinating insight into recent history, I just found the relentless, grinding poverty and misery too depressing and was... Read more
Published 22 days ago by J. Watson

4.0 out of 5 stars Very sad
Angela's Ashes is a poignant and funny memoir of the author's poverty-stricken childhood in Limerick, as told to us through his younger self. Read more
Published 22 days ago by Little Miss Average

1.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly Awful
Caution - plot spoiler:

"Ah, God, isn't it a terrible curse to be born Oirish? Sure, wouldn't it have been better if oi'd been drowned at birth? Read more
Published 26 days ago by Moddey Dhoo

4.0 out of 5 stars A break from the norm
I found this book hard to get into as my normal reading matter is usually v light hearted in comparison. All in all it was an interesting, insightful read. Read more
Published 1 month ago by A. Dinnen

5.0 out of 5 stars On my top list of books
This book will stay with you long after you've read the last line. An incredible true story of growing up in Ireland in absolute poverty. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Dr Phibes

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Old Irish Story.
I bought this as a gift and understand that it is an excellent true story of a family growing up in poverty and of the struggle to survive such hardship many years ago in Ireland... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mother of Pod.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Finest Memoir from the Foremost Memoirist of Our Time
In a time when memoirs became the finest expressions of high literary art, "Angela's Ashes" ascended with alacrity to become the most exalted of them. Read more
Published 5 months ago by John Kwok

5.0 out of 5 stars a great bargain
A recent newspaper review of Frank McCourt's works prompted me to look for a copy of Angela's Ashes. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Dr. J. K. Chisholm

2.0 out of 5 stars Sentimental, Superficial and Repetitive.
When you've read the first couple of chapters, you've read as much as you need. The tale is very repetitive and the characters, once established in superficial outline, do not... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Don

4.0 out of 5 stars Better listened to than read
The voice of an old Irishman, Frank McCourt, tells the story of a young American boy of Irish descent, his journey to Ireland with his beleaguered family, and his eventual return... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mr. SD Halliday

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