CONTENTS Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands How Santa Claus came to Simpson's Bar The Princess Bob and her Friends The Iliad of Sandy Bar Mr. Thompson's Prodigal The Romance of Madroqo Hollow The Poet of Sierra Flat The Christmas Gift that came to Rupert

How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar, is universally conceded to rank among Bret Harte's best tales.

What role did America's newspaper advice columnists play in shaping and forming societal attitudes toward LGBTQ people throughout the 20th century? They served the dual function of offering advice and satisfying the curious. They also often provided the first mention of homosexuality outside of newspaper crime blotters. More than 100 million readers regularly read the columns. This book chronicles some of the most popular and widely circulated newspaper columns between the 1930s and 2000, including Ann Landers, Dear Abby, Helen Help Us!, Dr. Joyce Brothers, The Worry Clinic, Dear Meg, Ask Beth, and Savage Love. It examines the function of these columns regarding the place of LGBTQ people in America and what role they played in forming a public opinion. From these columns, we learn not only the framework of how straight Americans understood their homosexual brethren, but also how attitudes and feelings continued to evolve.

A humorous philosophical investigation into the existence of Santa from a co–executive producer of The Big Bang Theory—the perfect stocking stuffer for the deep thinker on everyone’s list. Emmy award–winning comedy writer and philosophy scholar Eric Kaplan brilliantly turns a search for the truth about Santa into a laugh-out-loud metaphysical romp. Surveying everything from the analytic philosophy of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein to Buddhism, Taoism, and Kabbalah, Kaplan alights on comedy—including The Big Bang Theory and Monty Python—as the best way to resolve life’s most profound paradoxes, including the existence of perfect moments, Santa, and even God.

A new collection featuring the story that inspired Real Steel, a major motion picture starring Hugh Jackman.

A collection of humorous short stories about love and romance, including the tale of a besotted Sherlock Holmes ignoring all the clues that his girlfriend's been cheating on him.