Four years ago, I bought myself a paperback atlas—a floppy, glossy, 200-page edition quite unlike the hardback tome that had gathered dust on my shelf for decades. And this flimsy new atlas soon altered my grasp of reality in a way so elemental that I realized I’d obtained an essential tool of knowledge and power, all for a modest $14.95. For when I found it in my local bookshop, I vowed from that day on to look up every place I encountered in my reading, no matter what.
Previously, while reading, I would hear a voice in my head saying, That voice had sharply circumscribed my life, like the tiny pencil in my them.) It’s right across the Irish Sea from Dublin—no wonder it has vast shipyards and Paul McCartney has Irish charm!
