On the panel yesterday, here at Buying & Selling E-Content in Scottsdale, we were asked about the biggest challenge related to blogging. I think I said something about time, which is a real issue for all reasonably dedicated bloggers. After having made various other confessions, including the fact that I am terrified by the power of community and tremble before I hit Send on some mailings because I know our wonderful authors will flood me with contacts and new ideas, I managed to keep my mouth shut about one blogging challenge: it makes me feel schizophrenic at times, or at least makes me wonder if people will think I’m schizophrenic because I bounce so from topic to topic.

Here is a perfect example. A few days ago I was handed a magazine called The American, published by a right-wing DC thinktank, because it had a cover story about China. Well and good. But what do I see as I flip through to the China story? An article on American cheese written by our local cheese maven, Matt Rubiner, called, “The Big Cheese.”

Now that I think about it, the connection between China and cheese is even more complicated: I last talked to Matt when Simon Winchester and I stopped in his shop, Rubiner’s in Great Barrington, after meeting for a coffee to talk about–you guessed it–China. Simon’s latest book is called The Man Who Loved China. It has a wonderful cover with a moongate, and is coming out in May. Here’s an interview with Simon Winchester about the book.