Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - Available

Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt
Frank McCourt
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 2 copies available
A Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's masterful memoir of his childhood in Ireland.
"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 luminous 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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    January 1, 1997

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780743518901
      • File size: 436215 KB
      • Duration: 15:08:46

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 1110
    • Text Difficulty: 7-9

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Frank McCourt's memoirs of his impoverished childhood shows his great humanity. When he delivers his story directly to the listener, we are transported. We weep and laugh. The production shows the wonderful dynamism of an audiobook performance. McCourt sings the songs his mother sang. He chants the patriotic ballads his father woke him up with. His clarity of voice and depth of feeling are delivered directly. Don't miss this, it's an exceptional audiobook. R.F.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      You could paper the walls of an Irish castle with the accolades bestowed upon Angela's Ashes. First, the print version won the Pulitzer Prize. Then Frank McCourt himself narrated the abridged version (celebrated in AudioFile, April/May 1997). But the best was yet to come--the entire book read and sung and recited by author McCourt. Here we have the stereotypical Irish characters--the drunken poet father; the all-suffering mother; the miserable, hungry kids being turned away by a haughty Church--all made three-dimensional and brought fully to life by both McCourt's language and his loving, intimate narration. "It happened," this voice attests, "I was there." Grim it is--but the tale and its teller transcend the poverty--and so does the listener, who glories in the story and voice from beginning to end. Happily, Mc-Court is at work on a sequel. We eagerly await his next turn at the mike. E.K.D. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:1110
  • Text Difficulty:7-9

Loading