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If you like Angela's ashes

If you enjoyed Frank McCourt's book, you might like:

And you could also try Irish novelists who give a similar picture, such as:

Stories of people triumphing over adversity

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie
Dying professor gives former student lessons in life
Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins It's not about the bike: my journey back to life
Jean-Dominique Bauby The diving bell and the butterfly
Extraordinary story of man only able to communicate by blinking an eyelid
Rick Bragg All over but the shoutin'
Tribute to his mother who kept the family together in times of terrible deprivation
The Boys - coverMartin Gilbert The boys: triumph over adversity
The story of 732 young concentration camp survivors
Homer Hickam Jr Rocket boys
Rocket scientist's affectionate memoir of growing up in 1950s America
Stephen Kuusisto Planet of the blind
Autobiography of man almost totally blind since birth
George Lang Nobody knows the truffles I've seen
Hungarian who escaped the Holocaust and became leading American restaurant owner
Jennifer Lauck Blackbird: a childhood lost and found
The house on Mary Street, Carson City, Nevada is home to five-year-old Jennifer Lauck. Her life should be perfect, but her mother is very ill. In this memoir, Jennifer describes growing up in the 1970s and the extraordinary circumstances of her lost childhood.
Jennifer Lauck Still waters
The sequel to "Blackbird"
Colour of water - coverJames McBride The colour of water
Moving tribute by black musician to his mother, daughter of a Jewish rabbi
Frank Minucci Brother Frank
Drug dealer and mob enforcer who ended up an ordained minister
David Pelzer A child called "it": one child's courage to survive,
The lost boy: a foster child's search for the love of a family,
A man named Dave
The journey of Dave Pelzer is completed as he confronts his abusive parents and seeks to create a life filled with love and acceptance.

Stories of persecution and escape

Jan Phillip Reemtsma In the cellar
A German kidnap victim's day-to-day account of 33 days imprisoned in a cellar
Richard Newman Alma Rose: Vienna to Auschwitz
In the 1930s, Alma Rose founded a women's orchestra, and when, after courageously assisting her family to flee, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, she set up an orchestra there too. She saved the lives of some four dozen members of the orchestra
Stephen Brookes Through the jungle of death: a boy's escape from wartime Burma
Michael Smith Foley, the spy who saved 10,000 Jews
Sheila Isenberg A hero of our own: The story of Varian Fry
How one American in Marseille saved Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt and more than 1000 others from the Nazis
Theo Tschuy Dangerous Diplomacy: The story of Carl Lutz, rescuer of 62,000 Hungarian Jews
Mary McKay Maynard My faraway home: an American family's WWII tale of adventure and survival in the jungles of Philippines
Andrew S. Grove Swimming across: A memoir
Explores the way in which persecution and struggle against first the Nazis and then the Communists, as well as kinship and courage, shaped Hungarian Andri Grof's life
Joseph Hurka Fields of light: a son remembers his heroic father
The author recalls the life and adventures of his father, a Czech freedom fighter who struggled for years against the Communist authorities in his country
Hermann H. Field Trapped in the Cold War: the ordeal of an American family
Abducted in Poland while searching for his brother, Hermann Field spent five years in a Polish prison while his wife searched for him
Sue McCauley Escape from Bosnia: Aza's story
When Brent King, a young New Zealand pilot, was sent as a UN observer to Bosnia, he fell in love with Aza Mehmedovic, whose escape from Zepa he then had to orchestrate
Barbara Victor The lady: Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Laureate and Burma's prisoner
An account of Aung San Kyi's struggle against Burma's brutal military junta
Loung Ung First they killed my father: a daughter of Cambodia remembers
An unforgettable narrative of war crimes and desperate actions from a childhood survivor of Cambodia's brutal Pol Pot regime