What I'm reading this week

Margaret MacMillan's "Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World" (Random House: $27.95). Your eyes won't glaze over when you read Margaret MacMillan's account of Richard Nixon's unprecedented visit to China to meet with Mao in 1972. MacMillan's writing is lucid, compelling and a fascinating study of the personalities of these two leaders and the complex statesmen around them, through the prism of the Cold War and general mistrust between East and West.

There are some fascinating revelations, such as when Air Force One touched down in Beijing, there was almost no one there to greet him, and Beijing streets looked like a ghost town. People had been told to stay away. Nixon did not know for sure whether he'd get time with Mao (which was some cause for concern by Haldeman and Kissinger). And, at the last minute when he got an audience and sped across town for the meeting, it was "too late" to let the American press know. Consequently, this landmark meeting was only documented by Chinese media.

Cincinnati Opera's "Nixon in China" opens Thursday. Click here for tickets.