What’s your favorite book that no one else has heard of?

“Weeds of the West,” a 628-page, profusely illustrated handbook written by a team of 40 weed specialists and published by the Western Society of Weed Science. The color photographs are splendid to look at, but what I love most about the book are the names of the wildflowers themselves. Bur chervil. Spreading dogbane. Skeletonleaf bursage. Nodding beggarticks. Bristly hawksbeard. Tansy ragwort. Blessed milkthistle. Poverty sumpweed. Prostrate spurge. Everlasting peavine. Panicle willowweed. Ripgut brome. There are hundreds of them, and the pure pleasure of reading those words out loud to myself never fails to lift my mood. The poetry of the American earth.

Tell us about your favorite New York stories.

There are so many of them, so many dozens gathered over so many years, but in light of the hatred poured out against immigrants by one of the candidates in the recent presidential campaign, I’ll give you this one because the featured player in it is an immigrant. My local stationery store in Brooklyn is owned by a man who was born in China. His assistant was born in Mexico, and the woman who handles the cash register was born in Jamaica. One chilly afternoon several months ago, as I was standing by the front counter getting ready to pay for my supplies, the Jamaican cashier noticed that my nose was running (because of the cold weather), but rather than ignore it or tell me to wipe my nose, she plucked out a fresh tissue from her box of Kleenex, leaned across the counter, and wiped it for me. Very gently, I might add, and without saying a word. Was it wrong of her to have touched me without my permission? No doubt some people would think so. But from my perspective, it was an act of unusual kindness, and I thanked her for helping me out. Another instance of life in the People’s Republic of Brooklyn.

What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid when writing?

No fiction while working on a novel — only after I’m done and before I’ve started something new — but poetry, history and biographies are acceptable, along with books to help me research various things related to the book I’m writing. The truth is that I read far less than I did when I was younger, and because the struggle to write my own books can be so exhausting (both physically and mentally), I often collapse onto the sofa after dinner, turn on the television and watch the Mets (during the baseball season) or old films on TCM with Siri (who is just as exhausted from her work as I am from mine). In my humble opinion, the two greatest improvements in American life over the past 20 years are the invention of TCM (a quality cinémathèque in everyone’s living room!) and the self-sticking postage stamp.

What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

“English as She Is Spoke: The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English,” by Pedro Carolino, first published in America in 1883, with an introduction by Mark Twain. As Twain puts it, “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book,” and indeed it is ridiculous — a guide to English written by someone who had not the slightest grasp of the language. More than a hundred pages filled with such sentences as: “You have there a library too many considerable, it is a proof your love for the learnings” or “Nothing is more easy than to swim; it do not what don’t to be afraid of.” The book is pure Dada, and as Twain writes, “its immortality is secure.”

What was the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?

“The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel,” which was given to me on my 17th birthday. It opened a door in my mind, and behind that door I found the room where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.