The ten-year-old detective solves "The case of the Missing Garlic Bread" and other food-related mysteries. Includes menus and recipes for a Fourth-of-July party, a birthday brunch, and other occasions.

In this collection of short meditations on various topics, Hans Blumenberg eschews academic ponderousness and writes in a genre evocative of Montaigne's Essais , Walter Benjamin's Denkbilder , or Adorno's Minima Moralia . Drawing upon an intellectual tradition that ranges from Aesop to Wittgenstein and from medieval theology to astrophysics, he works as a detective of ideas scouring the periphery of intellectual and philosophical history for clues--metaphors, gestures, anecdotes--essential to grasping human finitude. Images of shipwrecks, attempts at ordering the world, and questions of foundations are traced through the work of Goethe, Schopenhauer, Simmel, Husserl, Thomas Mann, and others. The book's reflections culminate in a rereading of the fable "Care Crosses the River" that lies at the center of Heidegger's analysis of Dasein in which the fable's elided Gnostic center is recovered: Care creates the human in its own image, as a reflection of its narcissism. At stake throughout are two inextricable elements of Blumenberg's thought: a theory of nonconceptuality as essential to philosophizing and an exploration of culture understood as humanity's unceasing attempts to relieve itself of the weight of the absolutism of reality.

"Black Bart was not the Old West's only stagecoach robber, but he was the most famous. To many people, he was a folk hero: a robber who didn't threaten or harm passengers. He was a bandit with a sense of humor who wrote poetry. In robbing at least 28 Wells Fargo stagecoaches across northern California between 1875 and 1883, he never fired a shot or injured anyone. His gun, it turned out, was never loaded. Newspaper stories about the poet robber's exploits and about Jim Hume, the unyielding chief detective of Wells Fargo, became popular reading throughout the West. Black Bart seemed to enjoy the chase. During one robbery the driver told him "They'll catch you one of these days." Bart answered, "Perhaps, but in the meantime give my regards to J. B. Hume, will you?" For eight years, each new robbery--and each new story--made Hume even more determined to track him down. Resources include a list of all Bart's robberies, notes, and bibliography, making this a rich resource for all Wild West readers."--Provided by publisher.