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Angela's Ashes
- Narrated by: Frank McCourt, Jeannette Walls - introduction
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
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Publisher's summary
Pulitzer Prize, Biography/Autobiography, 1997
National Book Critics Circle, Biography/Autobiography, 1997
Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, movingly read in his own voice, bears all the marks of a classic. Born in Depression-era Brooklyn to Irish immigrant parents, Frank was later raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. His mother, Angela, had no money to feed her children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely worked, and when he did, he drank his wages. Angela's Ashes is the story of how Frank endured - wearing shoes repaired with tires, begging for a pig's head for Christmas dinner, and searching the pubs for his father - a tale he relates with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness.
Listen to Frank McCourt talk about this book on C-SPAN's Booknotes (7/11/97).
Critic reviews
"Frank McCourt is a marvelous writer whose words are made all the better when he reads them aloud..." (Bookpage)
"...one of the best I've heard in years." (The Boston Globe)
"...so good it deserves a sequel" (The New York Times)
"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.... 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." (AudioFile)
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Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: In a house full of secrets, two babies - one light-skinned, the other dark - are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper's daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm's inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.
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Great read!
- By S. Clay on 11-01-17
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The Other Side of Paradise
- A Memoir
- By: Staceyann Chin
- Narrated by: Staceyann Chin
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Stacyann Chin has appeared on television and radio, including The Oprah Winfrey Show , CNN, and PBS, discussing issues of race and sexuality. But it is her extraordinary voice that launched her career as a performer, poet, and activist. Here, she shares her unforgettable story of triumph against all odds in this brave and fiercely candid memoir.
No one knew Staceyann's mother was pregnant until a dangerously small baby was born on the floor of her grandmother's house in Jamaica, on Christmas Day.
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Incredible life, incredible performer
- By RyRy on 10-21-19
By: Staceyann Chin
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The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
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Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
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Caramelo
- By: Sandra Cisneros
- Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
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Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
- By Michele on 08-07-20
By: Sandra Cisneros
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Owls Do Cry
- By: Janet Frame
- Narrated by: Heather Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Owls Do Cry is one of the classics of New Zealand literature, and has remained in print continuously for 50 years. A fiftieth anniversary edition was published in 2007.
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well told but a wee bit depressing.
- By Muzza on 11-03-19
By: Janet Frame
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Beyond the Pale
- By: Elana Dykewomon
- Narrated by: Elana Dykewomon
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
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Beyond the Pale - winner of the Lambda Literary Award - tells the stories of two Jewish women living through times of darkness and inhumanity in the early 20th century, capturing their undaunted love and courage in luminous and moving prose. The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich's odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York.
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great historical fiction with a lesbian twist
- By Kelly on 11-25-13
By: Elana Dykewomon
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Roman's Journey
- An Extraordinary Odyssey of Holocaust Survival
- By: Roman Halter
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Roman Halter was a spirited, optimistic schoolboy in 1939 when he and his family gathered behind the curtains to watch the Volksdeutsche (German Polish) neighbors of their small town in western Poland greet the arrival of Hitler's armies with kisses and swastika flags. Within days, the family home had been seized, 12-year-old Roman had become a slave of the local SS chief, and, returning from an errand, he silently witnessed his Jewish classmates being bayoneted to death by soldiers at the edge of town. So began his remarkable six-year journey through some of the darkest caverns of Nazi Europe....
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Could not finish!!!!
- By Natalie Rohde on 02-23-16
By: Roman Halter
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Pennies for Hitler
- By: Jackie French
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1939, and for Georg, son of an English academic living in Germany, life is full of cream cakes and loving parents. It is also a time when his teacher measures the pupils' heads to see which of them have the most 'Aryan'- shaped heads. But when a university graduation ceremony turns into a pro-Nazi demonstration, Georg is smuggled out of Germany to war-torn London and then across enemy seas to Australia where he must forget his past and who he is in order to survive. Hatred is contagious, but Georg finds that kindness can be, too.
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This could be a Bryce Courtenay novel
- By K Cornwinkle on 07-02-14
By: Jackie French
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Trumpet
- By: Jackie Kay
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret. Unbeknown to all but his wife Millie, Joss was a woman living as a man. The discovery is most devastating for their adopted son, Colman, whose bewildered fury brings the press to the doorstep and sends his grieving mother to the sanctuary of a remote Scottish village. Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, Trumpet by Jackie Kay is a starkly beautiful modern classic about the lengths to which people will go for love.
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Beautiful and True
- By Colin on 05-24-17
By: Jackie Kay
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The Girl with the Louding Voice
- A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)
- By: Abi Daré
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams.
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A must HEAR!
- By Michelle on 03-09-20
By: Abi Daré
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Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
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Frank McCourt is an entertaining writer and reader
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Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, movingly read in his own voice, bears all the marks of a classic. Born in Depression-era Brooklyn to Irish immigrant parents, Frank was later raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. His mother, Angela, had no money to feed her children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely worked, and when he did, he drank his wages. Angela's Ashes is the story of how Frank endured.
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Frank McCourt is an entertaining writer and reader
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Really addictive!
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Welcome to the summer of 1985 in Philadelphia, when the city was rocked—in almost every sense of the word—by two unprecedented events: Mayor W. Wilson Goode’s May 13 decision to bomb the headquarters of MOVE, a controversial Philadelphia-based radical communal organization, and the July 13 Live Aid concert, where international rock royalty convened in Philly to raise money for victims of the Ethiopian famine. Separated by just two months and eight miles, these events would showcase both the best and the worst of the so-called City of Brotherly Love.
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Misleading title and poor execution
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Alphie McCourt, the youngest of the McCourt brothers, reminisces on Christmas past—from his childhood in Limerick to the celebrations of family and friends in New York as an adult with Frank and Malachy.
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When they met at an airport, it was love at first sight. But in time, everything collapsed. As an unnamed but unforgettable woman muses on her life—from meet cute to marriage and parenthood—her recollections inexorably build to a devastating truth. In this shattering performance, Carey Mulligan, star of the critically lauded drama An Education, captivates audiences with playwright Dennis Kelly’s harrowing ruminations on family, ambition, gender, and violence.
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Be aware of the content before listening
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It is 1970. "Bean" Holladay is 12 and her sister, Liz, is 15 when their artistic mother, Charlotte, a woman who flees every place she’s ever lived at the first sign of trouble," takes off to find herself." She leaves her girls enough money for food to last a month or two. But when Bean gets home from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz board a bus from California to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying antebellum mansion that’s been in the family for generations.
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A Bronze Star
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From the internationally acclaimed best-selling author of Code Name Verity comes a stunning new story of pearls, love and murder. Sixteen-year-old Julie Beaufort-Stuart is returning to her family's ancestral home in Perthshire for one last summer. It is not an idyllic return to childhood. Her grandfather's death has forced the sale of the house and estate, and this will be a summer of good-byes. Not least to the McEwen family - Highland travellers who have been part of the landscape for as long as anyone can remember.
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Freshwater Pearls and Scottish Plaid
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What listeners say about Angela's Ashes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- One who has experienced it!
- 03-03-10
Angela's Ashes (unabridged)
The book gives a real glimpse into life in Ireland and the problems the Mc Court family faced. I appreciated hearing the songs too.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Hal York
- 01-08-10
6 Stars, if I were able to
Frank McCourt is one of my favorite story tellers. The account of his life growing up in a poor Irish family is filled with moments of sadness as well as passages that will tickle your funnybone. But the best part of this audiobook is listening to the man tell the stories. His Irish brogue and his way of interpreting the world through the eyes of a young boy combine to make Angela's Ashes one of my favorite audiobooks.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Everett2314
- 02-08-07
Listening adds so much!
I started to listen to the book, but then bought a paper copy half way through. (Sometimes you want re-read a section, tough to do on a MP3 player). I enjoyed the spoken version so much more, than if I had just read the book. The songs and pronunciations were lost on me on the page, but the audio version brought them to life.
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4 people found this helpful
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- JohnG
- 08-22-15
Not a book for high school students.
Any additional comments?
Not a book for high school students. I downloaded it from the book list for high school student and would like to delete it.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Мартин
- 11-29-14
Frank McCourt, what a guy!!!
What made the experience of listening to Angela's Ashes the most enjoyable?
My paternal grandfather was from Ireland (Cork) and so I liked hearing about Frank's experience growing up there. Also.....his narration was great...just great!
What did you like best about this story?
How Frank tried to keep his head above water in a world where poverty was pulling on his legs trying to drown him and his mother, just barely able to cope, was little help to him.
What about Frank McCourt’s performance did you like?
Everything....his accent brings it to life and as he is retelling his own experiences, he often reads like he is telling us a story rather than reading from a book.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
When his aunt bought him new clothes for his job. Also Paddy Clohessy and the fact that he is even more poverty stricken than Frankie is moving.
Any additional comments?
This is one of those books I have listened to more than once. When Frank McCourt passed away, I heard the news on TV and thought "that voice has been silenced forever, how sad". I loved this book so much and felt like I was drawn into his world with it than when he really died, I was sad and felt like I lost someone I knew.
Highly recommended.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jodie
- 04-01-14
I almost returned this book...
When I first started listening to this book, I really didn't like it. I had a very hard time following the accent of the narrator. I went to return it and then reread all the reviews, realizing that I needed to give it more time. Like watching a Shakespeare play, the language grows on you and you can follow it easier as you get used to it.
I had a range of emotions while reading this book. I have ancestors who immigrated from Ireland to America and I had to rethink everything I thought I knew about them. I had assumed they came from the vibrant green and cozy Ireland where everyone was spectacularly nice and neighborly. After reading Frank McCourt's autobiography, I realize that my thinking was probably inaccurate. I never realized how stern the Irish were and how miserable and poor so many were. I had heard the stories of the drinking but assumed it was a stereotype; I never realized the damage it did to families. I also didn't understand the impact of the Catholic church on the Irish people and how the families seemed to be motivated by guilt from the church.
This book can be amusing at times, but for the most part it is very serious and very sobering. It was a learning experience for me and I highly recommend that everyone who is interested in the roots of the people who helped build America, read this book.
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- Mark W Matthews PhD
- 09-23-12
an amazing life read by the man who lived it!
What made the experience of listening to Angela's Ashes the most enjoyable?
First, with Frank McCourt reading his memoir, there is an added air of authenticity to his memories and stories. Second, the way he creates the local denizens of his neighborhoods into excellent characters by interacting with them and not over-describing them is refreshing. It is their relationship with "Frankie" that brings the others in this first-person narrative alive, not just his descriptions of them. Finally, his ability to express his internal thoughts, feelings, angst, and frequent consternation is wonderful and developmentally appropriate for the different ages he traverses. When he is five he sounds like he is five; when he is 15 he sounds like he is 15.
Who was your favorite character and why?
My favorite character is Frankie because he is a lad who had no breaks and continues to plod along and succeed.
What about Frank McCourt’s performance did you like?
First, I love his accent. Second, his cadence and intonation provide excellent pacing for the story. Finally, his tone of voice was able to impart wit, humor, irritation, frustration, and irony I am not sure would have been as clearly evident with the written word alone.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
When his young sister dies in New York... very sad.
Any additional comments?
I have enjoyed this work so much I have listened to it several times.
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- cmliveyourlife
- 06-19-12
Great story about a life I would never want...
Frank McCourt is a fabulous writer and a superb narrator of his own story. Unfortunately, his story is so depressing that I simply can't give it a five star rating. Growing up in Ireland where the Catholic Church seems to influence every aspect of life creates an atmosphere of oppression and lost hope. Having a father who is a drunk and and a mother who keeps having children with no real way to care for them adds to the depression of the story. Yet other reviewers talk of Mr. McCourt's forgiveness, which I do not understand nor see. Great writing. Great narration. Horrible story. Thanks anyway, but I think it's time for another romance novel...
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- Coleen
- 03-19-11
Disappointing
I thought the author narrating would add to the experience but, honestly, his delivery was kind of sing-songy and boring. I think a more dramatic reader would have brought the listener into the story - it lacked the emotional impact I think reading it yourself would garnish.
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- Jim
- 03-13-11
I Should Have Talked to Frank More
I knew Frank McCourt in New York City, although not well. He kept so much to himself I didn't have many interactions with him. He sat on a stool in the corner of his brother Alphie's restaurant/bar on the Upper West Side of New York City, where I worked, sipping a glass of something, always alone. I have a feeling that, like all good autobiographies, some events and characters in Frank's book were enlarged, some reduced, others adjusted and sculptured to focus and shape the narrative. If George Orwell did that sort of thing in books like Down and Out in Paris and London then Frank McCourt deserves the same latitude. Frank certainly re-spun the dialogue from what he remembered, aided by years being as aspiring writer and playwright. Be that as it may, the text rings true and it is a thoroughly enjoyable book, narrated well by its writer. It's a tribute to endurance and decidedly a book worth reading or listening to.
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