SNIPPET: Frank McCOURT was born in NY but when he was a small boy his parents took the family back to Ireland. Frank returned to America when he was 19 and for many years was an English teacher at Stuyvestant High School in NYC. Author Pete HAMILL had this to say about Frank McCOURT's 1996 Pulitzer prize-winning autobiography, 'Angela's Ashes' - "Frank McCourt has examined his ferocious childhood walked around it, relived it, and with skill and care and generosity of heart, has transformed it into a triumphant work of art. This book will be read when all of us are gone." McCourt's memoir was #1 National Bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, 'Los Angeles Times" Book Award, and the ABBY Award. Mary GORDON wrote, "I was moved and dazzled by the somber and lively beauty of this book." Vanessa V. Friedman, "Entertainment Weekly," wrote" The power of this memoir is that it makes you believe the claim: that despite the rags and hunger and pain, love and strength do come out of misery." Thomas CAHILL wrote, "Angela's Ashes is a chronicle of grown-ups at the mercy of life and children at the mercy of grown-ups, and it is such a marriage of pathos and humor that you never know whether to weep or roar - and find yourself doing both at once ... you will be made happy by some of the most truly marvelous writing you will ever encounter. McCourt deserves whatever glittery prizes are lying around ... and while you're at it pull him another Guinness!" Here are four excerpts: "Out in the Atlantic Ocean great sheets of rain gathered to drift slowly up the River Shannon and settle forever in Limerick. The rain dampened the city from the Feast of the Circumcision to the New Year's Eve. It created a cacophony of hacking coughs, bronchial rattles, asthmatic wheezes, consumptive croaks. It turned noses into fountains, lungs into bacterial sponges. It provoked cures galore; to ease the catarrh you boiled onions in milk blackened with pepper; for the congested passages you made a paste of boiled flour and nettles, wrapped it in a rag, and slapped it, sizzling, on the chest. From October to April the walls of Limerick glistened with the damp. Clothes never dried; tweed and woolen coats housed living things, sometimes sprouted mysterious vegetations ... The rain drove us into the church -- our refuge, or strength, or only dry place. At Mass, Benediction, novenas, we huddled in great damp clumps, dozing thought priest drone, while steam rose again from our clothes to mingle with the sweetness of incense, flowers and candles. Limerick gained a reputation for piety, but we knew it was only the rain." "Mam is delighted I earned sixpence for reading to Mr. Timoney and what was it he wanted read, the 'Limerick Leader'? I tell her I had to read 'A Modest Proposal' from the back of 'Gulliver's Travels' and she says, That's all right, 'tis only a children's book. You'd expect him to want something strange for he's a little off in the head after years in the sun in the English army in India and they say he was married to one of them Indian women and she was accidentally shot by a soldier during some class of a disturbance. That's the kind of thing that would drive you to children's books. She knows this Mrs. Minihan who lives next door to Mr. Timoney and used to clean house but couldn't stand it anymore the way he laughed at the Catholic Church and said one man's sin was another man's romp ... The next Friday Declan Collopy from the Confraternity sees me on the street delivering the papers with my uncle Pat Sheehan. Frankie McCourt, what are you doin' with Ab Sheehan? He's my uncle. Your're supposed to be at the Confraternity. I'm working, Declan. You're not supposed to be working. You're not even ten and you're destroyin' the perfect attendance in our section. If you're not there next Friday I'll give you a good thump in the gob, do you hear me? Uncle Pat says, Go 'way, go 'way, or I'll walk on you .... He pushes Uncle Pat on the shoulder and knocks him back against the wall. I drop the papers and run at him but he steps aside and punches me on the back of the neck and my forehead is rammed into the wall and it puts me in such a rage I can't see him anymore. I go at him with arms and legs and if I could tear his face off with my teeth I would but he has long arms like a gorilla and he just keeps pushing me away so that I can't touch him. Uncle Pat says,! You shouldn't be fightin' like that an' you dropped all me papers an' some o' them is wet an' how am I supposed to sell wet papers. And I wanted jump on him too and hit him for talking about papers after I stood up to Declan Collopy. At the end of the night he gives me three chips from his bag and sixpence instead of threepence. He complains it's too much money and it's all my mother's fault for going on to Grandma about the low pay. Mam is delighted I'm getting sixpence on Fridays from Uncle Pat and sixpence on Saturday's from Mr. Timoney. A shilling a week makes a big difference and she gives me tuppence to see the Dead End Kids at the Lyric after I'm finished the reading." "On Sunday mornings in Limerick I watch them go to church, the Protestants, and I feel sorry for them, especially the girls, who are so lovely, they have such beautiful white teeth. I feel sorry for the beautiful Protestant girls, they're doomed. That's what the priests tell us. Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. Outside the Catholic Church there is nothing but doom. And I want to save them. Protestant girl, come with me to the True Church. You'll be saved and you won't have the doom. After Mass on Sunday I go with my friend Billy Campbell to watch them play croquet on the lovely lawn beside their church on Barrington Street. Croquet is a Protestant game. They hit the ball with the mallet, pock and pock again, and laugh. I wonder how they can laugh or don't they even know they're doomed? I feel sorry for them and I say, Billy, what's the use of playing croquet when you're doomed? He says, Frankie what's the use of not playing croquet when you're doomed?" "Paddy's uncle Peter, the one that was in India in the English army, they have a photo of him standing with a group of soldiers with their helmets and guns and bandoliers around their chest and there are dark men in uniform who are Indians and loyal to the King. Uncle Peter had a great time for himself in a place called Kashmir, which is lovelier than Killarney that they're always bragging about and singing ... The rain is clearing and there are birds honking over our heads. Paddy says they're ducks or geese or something on their way to Africa where it's nice and warm. The birds have more sense than the Irish. They come to the Shannon for their holidays and then go back to the warm places, maybe even India. He says he'll write me a letter when he's over there and I can come to India and have my own girl with a red dot. What's that dot for, Paddy? It shows they're high class, the quality. But, Paddy, would the quality in India talk to you if they knew you were from a lane in Limerick and had no shoes?"