This history-drenched city on the Adriatic has always tantalized Jan Morris with its moodiness and changeability. After visiting Trieste for more than half a century, she has come to see it as a touchstone for her interests and preoccupations: cities, seas, empires. It has even come to reflect her own life in its loves, disillusionments, and memories. Her meditation on Trieste is characteristically layered with history and glows with stories of famous visitors from James Joyce to Sigmund Freud.

A lyrical travelogue, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is also superb cultural history and the culmination of a singular career -- "an elegant and bittersweet farewell" (Boston Globe).