Autobiograohy | A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea.

Title: Angela’s Ashes
Author: Frank McCourt
Year Published: 1996 (Scribner)
Year Purchased: 1997
Source: Unknown
About: This is one of the most famous memoirs of all-time-I certainly don’t need to illustrate its contents or expound on its merits. I’ll just say that it is harrowing, lovely and every bit as good as all of the press it received back in the 1990s insisted it was. McCourt deserved the towering heap of praise-and the Pulitzer-that he was given.
Motivation: I was alive when it came out. Seriously, this is one of the few books that almost everyone I know has read; this includes the few hard-core non-readers in my wide orbit. It also came highly recommended by a friend, who read it as soon as it hit the shelves of the bookstore she managed.
Times Read: 2
Random Excerpt/Page 59: “The room had a fireplace where we could boil water for our tea or an egg in case we ever came into money. We had a table and three chairs and a bed, which Mam said was the biggest she had ever seen. We were glad of the bed that night, worn out after nights on floors in Dublin and Grandma’s. It didn’t matter that there were six of us in the bed, we were together, away from grandmothers and guards, Malachy could say ye ye ye and we could laugh as much as we liked.”
Happiness Scale: 9

A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea.