Openhearted: Eighty Years of Love, Loss, Laughter and Letting Go

Openhearted is a memoir by Ann Ingle that was shortlisted for two Irish Book Awards 2021. It is a candid and inspiring story about living life with curiosity and delight, even as one ages. The memoir has received critical acclaim, with reviewers calling it courageous, poignant, and life-affirming.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 23 September 2021
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

SHORTLISTED FOR TWO IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 Something they don t tell you about getting older is that you fall. Oh,you hear about it in passing,of course,She had a fall,poor thing. Falling is not something you ever think about as a younger woman. You think about falling in love. . . . At 20 Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall. At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding she discovered that he hadn t even told her his real name. Sixty-odd years later Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children into the world, their father s years of mental illness and tragic death at 40, being a cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin, coming into her own in her middle years - going to college, working and writing, and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade, even as she accepts the realities of being old. Candid about everything that matters - love, sex, heartbreak, money, class, religion, mental health, rearing children (and letting them go), reading and writing, ageing - Openhearted is a compelling story about living life in a spirit of curiosity and delight and with a willingness to look for good in others. ___________________ By some distance the most courageous, most poignant, most life-affirming memoir I ve read in the last twenty years and more Paul Howard Genuinely inspirational. I LOVE ANN INGLE Marian Keyes What a beautiful openhearted, at times broken-hearted memoir ... honest, funny, searingly direct, a wonderful voice ... remarkable Joe Duffy Really beautiful. Searingly honest,astonishingly frank and very, very funny Maia Dunphy SHORTLISTED FOR TWO IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 Something they don t tell you about getting older is that you fall. Oh, you hear about it in passing, of course, She had a fall, poor thing. Falling is not something you ever think about as a younger woman. You think about falling in love. . . . At 20 Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall. At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding she discovered that he hadn t even told her his real name. Sixty-odd years later Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children into the world, their father s years of mental illness and tragic death at 40, being a cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin, coming into her own in her middle years - going to college, working and writing, and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade, even as she accepts the realities of being old. Candid about everything that matters - love, sex, heartbreak, money, class, religion, mental health, rearing children (and letting them go), reading and writing, ageing - Openhearted is a compelling story about living life in a spirit of curiosity and delight and with a willingness to look for good in others. ___________________ By some distance the most courageous, most poignant, most life-affirming memoir I ve read in the last twenty years and more Paul Howard Genuinely inspirational. I LOVE ANN INGLE Marian Keyes What a beautiful openhearted, at times broken-hearted memoir ... honest, funny, searingly direct, a wonderful voice ... remarkable Joe Duffy Really beautiful. Searingly honest,astonishingly frank and very, very funny Maia Dunphy SHORTLISTED FOR TWO IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 Something they don t tell you about getting older is that you fall. Oh, you hear about it in passing, of course, She had a fall, poor thing. Falling is not something you ever think about as a younger woman. You think about falling in love. . . . At 20 Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall. At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding she discovered that he hadn t even told her his real name. Sixty-odd years later Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children into the world, their father s years of mental illness and tragic death at 40, being a cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin, coming into her own in her middle years - going to college, working and writing, and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade, even as she accepts the realities of being old. Candid about everything that matters - love, sex, heartbreak, money, class, religion, mental health, rearing children (and letting them go), reading and writing, ageing - Openhearted is a compelling story about living life in a spirit of curiosity and delight and with a willingness to look for good in others. ___________________ By some distance the most courageous, most poignant, most life-affirming memoir I ve read in the last twenty years and more Paul Howard Genuinely inspirational. I LOVE ANN INGLE Marian Keyes What a beautiful openhearted, at times broken-hearted memoir ... honest, funny, searingly direct, a wonderful voice ... remarkable Joe Duffy Really beautiful. Searingly honest,astonishingly frank and very, very funny Maia Dunphy

At 20, Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall. At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding, she discovered that he hadn't even told her his real name.

Sixty-odd years later, Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children into the world, their father's years of mental illness and tragic death at 40, being a cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin, coming into her own in her middle years - going to college, working and writing, and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade, even as she accepts the realities of being old.

Candid about everything that matters - love, sex, heartbreak, money, class, religion, mental health, rearing children (and letting them go), reading and writing, ageing - Openhearted is a compelling story about living life in a spirit of curiosity and delight and with a willingness to look for good in others.

By some distance, the most courageous, most poignant, most life-affirming memoir I've read in the last twenty years and more.

Paul Howard

Genuinely inspirational. I LOVE ANN INGLE

Marian Keyes

What a beautiful openhearted, at times broken-hearted memoir ... honest, funny, searingly direct, a wonderful voice ... remarkable

Joe Duffy

Really beautiful. Searingly honest,astonishingly frank and very, very funny

Maia Dunphy

Weight: 418g
Dimension: 144 x 223 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781844885718