The Invention of Memory: An Irish Family Scrapbook - Softcover

Simon Loftus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907970525 ISBN 13: 9781907970528

Publisher: Daunt Books, 2014

Synopsis

From the arrival of his first ancestor in Dublin in 1560, Simon Loftus traces the fascinating story of his family's heritage in Ireland – piecing together fragments of legend and biography that span over 350 years of Irish history.

The background is the colonial conquest of Ireland and the clash of religious and national identity, but the focus is close at hand, familial. The passions and eccentricities, the daily concerns and relationships, the rich dramas and anecdotes of individuals in this Ascendancy family – over eight generations – combine to form an enthralling memoir of shifting viewpoints and entertainingly inconsistent accounts of a shared past.

The Invention of Memory is a profound family portrait and a sweeping history that examines the nature of recollection and how our memories are shaped by experience and time.

About this title

Review:

Spell-binding, full of treasures and often extremely moving. --Selina Hastings

A series of beautifully rendered evocations of landscape, people, attitudes, emblems and events. It treats the sweep of a melancholy history with the utmost poise and discernment. --Irish Times

A powerfully evocative mixture of biography and legend, peppered with heart-warming and heart-wrenching anecdotes. --Financial Times

About the Author:

Simon Loftus is the author of Anatomy of the Wine Trade, A Pike in the Basement and Puligny Montrachet: Journal of a Village in Burgundy, which won the Glenfiddich Award. He has written extensively on wine, food, travel and social history. He lives in Suffolk.

About this edition

• Publisher: Daunt Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1907970525
• ISBN 13: 9781907970528
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 442