It is hard to imagine that a man with so much on his plate - indeed his very fate - had the time and focus to write a seminal and comprehensive biography - and of Richard Nixon, no small subject. But Conrad Black did just that. The Invincible Quest is one of the best political biographies I’ve read in recent memory. Written in Conrad’s usual lively fashion, the book debunks several myths associated with Nixon and is greatly helped by the author’s personal relationship with many of the players, including Nixon, Kissinger, Haig, as well as the unique access he had to the Nixon archives.

Previous books on Nixon have either been fairly dull or written through the lens of Watergate and Vietnam. But in the last decade, as the smoke from the past clears and we can be more objective about the man and his times, Nixon’s legacy is changing. (Note Margaret MacMillan’s excellent new book.) We are starting to better understand the politician as a person and not simply as a caricature, a president whose policies are more relevant today than ever (think China, the Mid East, the EPA, etc.). Conrad’s book does this - we now have a more accurate picture of Nixon than we ever had before, and any serious (or not so serious) student of American politics needs to read it. Do not be daunted by its size - Conrad’s style, the eras in which the book deals, and the revelations are all worth the time and effort.

As we all know, people have differing opinions of Conrad but the book should solidify his reputation as one of the best political biographers we have. It will be interesting to see what he tackles next.

II must admit that I first came to 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen because of Bono. The mega-star had just submitted advance praise for this book - a lovely quote that we’ll feature on the book cover - and so I figured if Bono loves this then so will I. I entertained visions of our publisher calling Bono up on speed dial.

But, of course, I am already a fan of Stephanie Nolen. Or, to put it another way, I have wiped a fair share of tears away while reading her astonishingly frank, brave and heartbreaking columns in The Globe and Mail about AIDS in Africa. I think she is one of the best journalists we have.

The book profiles twenty-eight different Africans living with AIDS. As Nolen writes, “I can’t tell every story. I decided to tell twenty-eight - one for each million people infected in Africa.” But with her keen, journalistic eye, she gets to the heart of what makes each of these people both unique and representative of a continent. Sure, this is sad stuff, but I cannot emphasize enough how powerful these stories are, and how much you learn about the human will, and about fighting for your life, literally, with passion and dignity.

Forget the newscasts, the government reports, and TV movies of the week: this book is the real thing. It will connect you to people you’d never otherwise get a chance to meet. And trust me, these people will move you to tears. They will move you to care. But most of all, they will move you to act.

It is hard to believe that April is upon us. I feel like it’s already October. As an editor, you spend your life thinking and talking about books that are six months or a year, or in some cases, many years off. So, it becomes a challenge to remember what books are being published now, and when people ask, what books are coming out from Knopf, I am often stopped short. But there is one wonderful moment that quickly brings you back to the here and now: when a new book arrives from the printer.

I had one of those moments earlier this week when Heather Mallick’s new book Cake or Death: The Excruciating Choices of Everyday Life landed on my desk. I had the pleasure of being Heather’s editor, and all I have to say is that you are in for a treat. Whether she is hilariously riffing about the consolations to be found in cleaning her house, quietly reflecting on her relationship with her mother, or giving tips on how to cope with people you just can’t stand, Heather’s writing is at once incisive, hilarious and provocative. For those of you who know Heather from her old Globe and Mail columns, or faithfully read her column in Chatelaine, you are going to love this book. And if you have not yet been introduced to the particular pleasure of reading Heather, choose cake, and dip into this delightful book.

April also brings Phil LaMarche’s rivetting debut novel American Youth, a page-turner of a story involving an accidental death and a young boy whose mother forces him to lie about his role in the event. When we received this manuscript, five of us read it over a weekend and we’ve been talking about it ever since. I can assure you that if you respond to this book in the same way we did, it will inspire one of your book club’s most interesting and heated discussion.

And fans of Mma Ramotswe have a reason to rejoice. (As do readers who haven’t discovered her yet.) The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, the eighth book in Alexander McCall Smith’s wonderful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, comes out this month. Diane Martin, publisher of Knopf Canada, and founder of the Mma Ramotswe fan club, assures me it’s the best book yet. I believe that it was my membership in that fan club that led me to getting my job here at Knopf, but that’s a story for another time. Now, I have to get back to a manuscript that won’t be published until next April…

I was stuck in a snowstorm in traffic the other day, a captive of the car radio, when out of the speakers came a familiar voice. You would know her, too, as Jane Doe, the woman who was raped twenty years ago, by a man who became know as the Balcony Rapist. She sued the Toronto police for using her and other women as bait during their investigation, and won.

Jane Doe was on the radio because her rapist was about to be released after serving his full sentence, though the likelihood that he would reoffend was described as “high.”

I published her book, The Story of Jane Doe, a few years ago. I had been editing her at the very same time as I had been editing LGen Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil and Irshad Manji’s The Trouble with Islam Today. It felt at times as though my office had become the tiny eye through which the troubles of the world were trying to pass: genocide, terrorism and fundamentalism, and rape.

Dallaire and Manji became national and international bestsellers, important achievements as what each book had to say is crucial to our futures. But Jane’s book, which turned a candid and critical eye on the sexual injustices at the heart of our own culture, did not climb the bestseller lists. In the end, her act of asking us to consider rape, and who benefits from it, to look at why rape is the only crime of violence whose incident is on the rise, her cry for us to examine what message we are delivering to our baby boys that encourages some of them to brutalize women: this was maybe just too challenging for people to bear.

She was being her usual unexpected self on the radio. Instead of calling for the Balcony Rapist’s head on a pike, she asked why it was that a man as dangerous as he was to be released into society with no support and no supervision. She was asking the questions she had asked in her book, which we sure as hell have not answered yet. If we can bear to listen to her message, she has given us a chance to look deeply into the heart of what ails us, and to confront monsters who are incredibly close to home.