Jan Morris’s “Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere.” It’s about the city she first visited as a soldier after World War II — and about the weirdness of time and history. Also Fernanda Eberstadt’s nervy “Bite Your Friends,” stories of artists and activists who use their bodies to defy the status quo. Mine is an orderly disorder: I keep the books I’m reading and using for work near at hand, even if that means on the floor around my desk. Reading a novel in the wee hours of the morning, when the city is quiet. I curl up on the couch beneath my favorite bookcases, and often stay there until the sky is streaked with morning light.

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Persons: Jan Morris’s “, Fernanda Eberstadt’s nervy, Jenny Erpenbeck’s “, ”, Brenda Starr, Dale Messick, alphabetizes Locations: Jan Morris’s “ Trieste