This is the first of a series of excerpts from Alexander McCall Smith’s newsletter. You can also visit his website, here.

January and February are months that I devote to writing and try to ensure that I have as few disturbances as possible. In theory. In practice, although this is a relatively quiet period, I have found that there have been several diversions, with more to come. Fortunately the business of finishing the next Isabel Dalhousie novel is going well, in spite of various other commitments.

The first of these was a trip to Sri Lanka to attend the second Galle Literary Festival. I have never been to Sri Lanka before, although I have been several times to India and have visited a number of other countries in the region. (Thailand and Singapore are both favourites of mine.) So the invitation to speak at the Galle Festival was one I was very keen to accept, even if it did fall in what should be a quiet period at home. I justified the whole thing to myself by saying that I would spend ten days writing there before the festival itself started, and that is, in fact, what I did. My wife and I established ourselves in a small, quiet hotel in the Old Fort at Galle (the Galle Fort Hotel) and every morning I wrote about Isabel Dalhousie while my wife read, swam, and saw the sights.

Sri Lanka is a gem of a country. We were in the southern part and did not visit the central area, which is hilly and where much of the tea is grown. That we shall do on our next visit—and I certainly intend to go back. Galle itself is a very old town that used to be a Portuguese and Dutch settlement before the British occupied it. These layers of history are all still in evidence, and one still comes across Portuguese and Dutch names in contemporary Sri Lankan families. The people, by the way, are particularly charming and make the visitor feel exceptionally welcome. It is a lovely place to visit, my only note of caution being this: you will not be able to visit the north and north-east until the tragic war which has simmered away there for so many years is finally brought to an end. The people I spoke to about this seemed to be universally distressed and despondent that the hostilities are proving so long-lived, and they all expressed anxiety about the ending of the ceasefire.

Me: single 20-something female, vitamin-D deprived publishing professional, avid reader. Seeks: quirky, comforting, vaguely inspirational and definitely well-written reading material.

Reading in February can be tricky. By now I’ve finished the books I was given as Christmas presents, any “fun summer reads” will still seem flakey until the patios open again, and there’s not as much motivation to read something intelligent as there is every fall in the back-to-school spirit. It’s a dangerous time of year to be disappointed: there just aren’t that many daylight hours by which to read this dark, short month (and most of those hours are taken up by working). It really puts the pressure on to choose a good paperback to slip in your bag for that long, snowy commute. Then there is Valentine’s Day fast approaching—one big anxiety-inducing, potentially disappointing, hard-to-shop-for “holiday.”

Take heart! There is a literary antidote to the February blahs, and it makes the perfect Valentine’s Day gift to buy for yourself (or, if you insist, for your lover).

Four Letter Word is a collection of fictional love letters written by a stunning roster of writers each of whom delivers an amazing letter. Some are bitter and hilarious, some are earnest and sad, some are downright stalkerish (in a good way). Single or coupled, male or female, romantic or…not, you’ll like this smart book. It’s as much about fiction as it is about love.

On February 14th I will brave the snow and expectation by taking this super-cute book on a date to a little candlelit table at a cafe I know. I’ll spend my Valentine’s Day with Panos Karnezis, Phil LaMarche, Jeff Parker, Michel Faber and Leonard Cohen. I know I won’t be disappointed.

I arrived extra-early for the Marie Phillips book launch, almost wanting to make up for the unexpected rescheduling of the event. As a veteran BookLounger, I received the warmest of greetings (as always) from Random House Canada and BookLounge staff as I flashed my copy of Gods Behaving Badly and signed the guestbook before entering The Room.

The Room, as I call it, is the elegant boardroom where many of the VIP events take place. The Room is a sacred place, a genteel literary grotto ensconced in a smallish office building not far from the cold glass-and-steel bank towers of Bay Street. The walls are lined with shelves proudly displaying dozens of Random House publishing successes. The soft lighting made the room all the more inviting. (Of course, the large table also played a key role, as Daniel et Daniel catering had brought in some exquisite hors d’oeuvres. The shrimp were to die for.)

While mingling and chatting with a few VIP guests, I suddenly caught sight of Marie Phillips just beyond the doorway; an interviewer and cameraman from Book Television were filming her for an upcoming television segment. As she made her way into The Room, her great pleasure at being celebrated with wine, Perrier, fine food and a throng of adoring fans was clearly palpable. After a glowing preamble by Anne Collins, VP, Publisher, Random House Canada, Marie Phillips spoke briefly, with charm and wit, about the exciting launch of the book in Canada. She said she wished they would hold similar receptions, replete with booze and food, in her native England. Afterwards, she signed my book, and I engaged her in a delightful but all too brief conversation. What a wonderful evening!

George Bernard Shaw once told a friend that he was sorry to have written him such a long letter, but he just didn’t have time to write a short one. I remembered that great line when I learned that my first speaking engagement about my new book, The Sun Climbs Slow: Justice in the Age of American Empire, would be limited to fifteen minutes. I wondered how I’d be able to do justice to a book I’d worked on for more than four years in such a short time. It worked out well, I believe, but like GBS, I’m looking forward to the easier, longer variety.

I found this a highly interesting book to research and write because it’s a story that is little known: the creation of courts of international criminal justice to try the perpetrators of the worst crimes, and the take-no-hostages politics that swirl around them. If these tribunals are successful, especially the new permanent International Criminal Court in The Hague, old-style impunity for leaders who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity will at last come under threat—for the first time in history.

In retrospect, meeting some of the people who have faciliated this unprecedented development in world affairs, against the greatest of odds, was probably the highlight of my research. I was interested to discover that many of the judges of the International Criminal Court are themselves from countries where major human rights abuses have occurred. It was this primary experience that inspired them to work for justice. I’ll write more about some of these exceptional people in another post. Stay tuned.

When people hear that I’ve written a history of cleanliness, they often assume that I’m a clean-freak. I’m definitely not: on the spectrum from complete-slob to clean-freak, I’m around the mid-point. And my initial interest in The Dirt on Clean didn’t stem from cleanliness as much as my curiosity about the everyday lives of people in past ages. But lately, I’ve been rethinking my connections with hygiene. Strangely, the first book I withdrew with my brand-new library card, at 6, was a book about hygiene, with photographs of 1950s children brushing their teeth and wielding their wash-cloths. I read every word because I was charmed with my new skill, but this earnest tome was not my choice: a friend had taken my card to the library because for some reason I was unable to go. For years, I laughed at that unlikely start to my life as a reader. Little did I imagine that I would ever write a book about cleanliness!

As a dreamy child who spent her time reading novels, I was the exception in a very medical family. My father met my mother when he taught bacteriology to nursing students; later he became a doctor, as did two of my siblings. I was the one who never got above a C in biology. But while writing my book, when I needed to understand how the plagues traveled to medieval Europe or how the 19th century discoveries of Koch and Pasteur transformed our understanding of disease, I realized that biology is fascinating. My parents are dead now, but I like to imagine them in some celestial reading room, where they pass The Dirt on Clean back and forth while discussing their least scientific child. “Did you read her summary of the germ theory?” my father asks fondly, and my mother replies, “And wait until you get to her discussion of the Hygiene Hypothesis!”

Timing is a crucial and tricky thing in publishing. In the case of The Sun Climbs Slow: Justice in the Age of Imperial America, it turns out that the publishing gods have smiled upon us. One of the threads of the book is about the establishment of the International Criminal Court and in telling that story, Erna Paris has tracked down a group of passionate people who on one side have come together to establish the ICC and on the other side are using their considerable means of power to thwart it. Surprisingly, the United States does not support the court and hasn’t become a member. But Erna makes the point that the US is following the well-trod path of the most powerful countries and empires throughout history: they don’t want to be held accountable, but they are certainly willing to hold the rest of the world accountable.

But our dilemma was that we might have to publish the book long after the first trial was heard—there had been ongoing rumours that it could have been last year. We gambled and chose to publish this month. As it turns out, the ICC is just about to hear their first case at the end of March (Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga is accused of recruiting and using thousands of child soldiers to fight for the armed wing of his party—The Union of Congolese Patriots—during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil war). Also going on at the same time, the legacy of the Bush government is being torn apart by critics and journalists during this extremely interesting election season (go Obama!). The more we hear about the actions of the Bush government and their alleged undermining of human rights, it isn’t a stretch to imagine some key Americans hauled in front of the ICC—oh, but wait a minute, that can’t happen. They aren’t subject to the treaty that founded the ICC. It’s a complicated world we live in, but this book provides a crucial and timely understanding of what has brought us to this moment in our history, and what might be possible if we learn from what history has to teach us.

The Book Lover’s Ball was held last week in Toronto and it was like an Oscar party for celebrity authors and Toronto’s social and corporate elite! In attendance were more than 60 celebrity authors, TV personalities and politicians, who came out to celebrate the night in black tie and flowing gowns all to raising money for The Toronto Public Library Foundation. We rubbed shoulders with David Miller, the Mayor of Toronto (who loved Jane’s beautiful jade gown), Oscar winning actor Graham Greene (who loved my shoes!), Mike Holmes of Holmes on Homes who graciously donned his trademark coveralls to strut his stuff on the catwalk for the book inspired fashion show, Andrew Pyper, who just finished writing his next book called The Killing Circle and it is rumoured to be AMAZING (really, we heard that repeated all night!). Then we found out that the author at our table, the award-winning mystery writer Peter Robinson, was presented with the Toronto Public Library Celebrates Reading Award! It truly was an unforgettable night of decadent food, glamorous fashions, cocktails and awards!

Constance MacKenzie (Senior Marketing Director) with Toronto Mayor David Miller and Jane Leaver (Sales Representative)

Constance with Oscar winning actor Graham Greene and Jane

Jane with Mike Holmes and Constance

Constance with Andrew Pyper and Jane

Ellen Seligman (Publisher, Fiction, & Senior Vice President, McClelland & Stewart), Maylin Scott (Assistant Manager, Library Sales & Academic), Peter Robinson the award-winning author of the Inspector Banks novels, Anne Stevens (National Library & Education Manager)