Angela's Ashes/'Tis/Teacher Man

One of the best books I've ever read. McCourt is such a gifted storyteller, you forget that he wrote this as a 66 year old man conjuring up his childhood in Brooklyn and Limerick, Ireland. Despite the extreme poverty of his childhood, it's really not depressing. The people of his world are funny, whimsical, horrible . . . rather like Dickens characters. There is no self-victimizing. He describes what happened, describes his mixed emotions (at times kind of skips over them, too, leaving the event [...]

Frank McCourt was over 60 when his first book a memoir was published and got a Pulitzer. Sound like something out of a book, but it's true and sometimes the truth can indeed be stranger than fiction. Following the success of his first book 'Angela's Ashes', he wrote 2 other follow up memoirs, tracing different parts of his life. In the best of cases, the term 'memoir' is pretty ambiguous, considering our propensity to selectively remember (unconsciously) only certain events and that too only in [...]

I have read all three and enjoyed them. Angela's Ashes is the story of the McCourt family's return to Ireland from America. A true tragedy that I don't quite know how young Frank and Malachy survived. "Tis is about he Frank escapes further poverty by going back to the US and becoming a teacher. Teacher Man is his tales of teaching English and Creative Writing to inner city technical high schools and an upper level high school with college bound students. I like the first two best. All are charmi [...]

I loved these books. They really helped me to understand my father who grew up in an itinerant tobacco farming family in NC. He seldom finished a year of school in a single school. His father would wake the kids in the middle of the night to tell them they were moving--NOW. Extreme poverty and a dysfunctional family. Frank McCourt rose above a childhood even worse than my dad's. His life story is very inspirational. I began with Angela's Ashes and just had to keep finding out what happened to hi [...]

After spending years avoiding these books for fear they'd make me too sad, my book club forced me to read Angela's Ashes. I was hooked and immediately read the other two. Loved them, especially Angela's Ashes. His wit and voice cut through the desperation of his life story and made for an enjoyable read.

All three a poignant look at a family desparate to survive and grow up through Ireland's famine and unemployment in the '30s. The strength of McCourt's mother and the sacrifices she made for her sons though the father was often absent or drunk was heartbreaking and yet the life that Frank made for himself as a teacher as an adult bring things together.

The Irish trilogy of memoir. Great storyteller. You'll be thinking in Irish after this. Teacher Man is my personal favorite for personal reasons, but the book will not make you want to go into the profession. Beware of catching fatigue and disillusionment.

McCourt certainly has the gift of the gab. All three books are well paced, well written, funny, heart wrenching and at times hard to put down and hard to pick up, but only because you can not guess what's coming next. Well worth your time!

There were so many gems of truth about teaching throughout the novel. The gems were often found amidst a lot of rambling. I have a hard time believing that McCourt was constantly not knowing what he was doing. It is frightening that people could stumble into teaching and make a career out of it.

Loved the first book. The second and third were so different from the first.

Brilliant, superb. It makes clear statements about how life was, for a small period in the US, but mostly about growing up in Ireland.

These are very good books, About hard working people just trying to make a honest living.

Glad to see how his life improved.

I listened to the audiobooks which I really enjoyed. Mr McCourt read the book himself and it enhanced the experience due to his charming Irush brogue.I enjoyed all 3 books equally

I feel like I know Frank McCourt yet I have only known him through his books. His early life is dreadful the poor little lad yet he comes through with flying colours.

Loved all of these. Listened to 'Tis and Teacher Man. McCourt was an excellent reader!

I love Frank McCourt. Angela's Ashes was a bit stark and depressing, but very good at the same time. 'Tis was excellent, as was Teacher Man. 'Tis was my favorite of the three.

A humorous and light-hearted take on a heavy life.

I liked all of these books.

Wow what a story!

excellent

Good stuff - "Angela's Ashes" was harrowing at times.