Arbitrary and infuriating as it can be, the Piglet competition is helpful in a variety of ways for evaluating some of the last year's crop of cookbooks.
The excellent photo at the Piglet 2014 page of the cookbooks in the tournament lined up on a shelf helped me eliminate one of them from my wishlist right off the bat, no matter where it ends up in the competition.
One of the worst sins by cookbook publishers in my estimation is gigantism, and the picture of the Piglet bookshelf shows clearly that Summerland is even taller and heavier than the already unacceptably large Vegetable Literacy. I love Deborah Madison's recipes and writing, and I sprang for VL during last year's cold, gray, remnant-winter-early spring. There were a couple of disappointments for me in the book, but I'd overlook most of them if the book were physically more manageable. At four pounds, Vegetable Literacy is banished to the sitting room shelves, hauled out only to look up specific recipes of interest if they show up on an EYB search.
Because it's not yet indexed, I'm not sure at the moment how many recipes Summerland contains, but the cover hints that it's extensively padded with gorgeous photographs, and printed on heavy, coated paper that shows them to best effect. Someone else's shelves or coffee table will have to bear that weight; I now have a three-pound limit.