Reading has become increasingly difficult for me since becoming a father. Gone are the days (for now) when I could literarily lose my self in a book, sailing the Black Sea as an argonaut with Jason; investing the profits of my smash-hit plays in ill-fated brick and mortar broadway ventures alongside Neil Simon in the 1960s. Different times, parallel characters. Now, the act of opening a book is a provocation that requires immediate satisfaction from one of my children, like the slap of a glove across the cheeks. They crawl over the book, seize it, or create a catastrophic diversion.

It's not to say I can never read, but I have to take my chances. Early mornings after chores but before they're up. At night after they're in bed (a recipe for falling asleep and dropping book on face). There's little method in my limited reading these days. But there is a regular practice of sorts that keeps me chugging along. I'm reading thematically. Different books, different genres. The same time and place from different perspectives. And it all starts with three books on China.

A history, a biography and a novel.

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