Only once in my long writing career has another book on precisely the same topic been released at the same time as mine. That was in 1997, when my book Great Bowls of Fire with W.C. Longacre was published by Ten Speed Press at the same time that Great Bowls of Fire, by Jay Solomon was published by Prima Publishing. And Prima was one of my main publishers back in the ’90s! Now, I read in Publishers Weekly, that The Nordic Cookbook, by Magnus Nilsson, is being published this fall by Phaidon, while over at Ten Speed Press, they are publishing Fire and Ice: Classic Nordic Cooking, by Darra Goldstein. I would imagine that neither publisher is very happy about this situation. Publishing can be quite weird at times. It would not be odd if these were two books on French cooking, but Nordic? Seal blubber sandwiches anyone? (I’m kidding, I’m kidding!)
