Ireland starts for me with the end of The Dead, which my father read to me from his desk in his basement office in New Albany, Ind.

Freaky things happen all the time in the world. I suppose everything has to happen for the first time at some point.

The city of Cork - the urban center, where all the shops and bars and everything are - is actually an island, a river island.

We live in such constant nearness to the abyss of past time that the moment is endlessly sucked into.

One of the best things I’ve read about that inexplicably, but endlessly, fascinating group of people, the so-called Serious Collectors of 78s. Petrusich burrows into not just their personalities but the hunger that unites and drives their obsessions. She writes elegantly, and makes you think, and most important manages to hang onto her skepticism in the midst of her own collecting quest.

What’s old doesn’t need to be old-fashioned. It gets reborn.

It is a curious fact that the word essayist showed up in English before it existed in French.