Sir Laurens van der Post, author, film-maker, storyteller of world-wide renown, soldier, prisoner of war, political advisor to heads of state, humanitarian, explorer, conservationist... the list goes on and on. His extraordinary curiosity, his love for the small and the great, and his tremendous feeling and concern for his surroundings and all that they included, set him travelling the lands and the waters of the world, a messenger in search of meaning. He touched and inspired many along the way, some of whom are to be found in the pages of this book. A true man of his time, Sir Laurens was born in 1906 in the interior of South Africa, served in the British forces during World War II, including three-and-a-half years in Japanese captivity, and lived and worked since that time in London, where he died just after celebrating his 90th birthday in December, 1996. 'The Rock Rabbit and The Rainbow' was originally conceived as a Festschrift, or gift collection of writings, for Sir Laurens by several of his friends and then evolved into its present form, which includes numerous original contributions by Sir Laurens himself.

The first book to look at the relationship either between Surrealism and Science Fiction or between Surrealism and comics.

In Bashan and I (sometime referred to as Man and Dog), Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice, writes in the most remarkable way of the unique relation that links a dog with his master. These memoirs read as a novel, and describe in fierce detail the behavior, feelings and psychology of Mann’s dog Bashan, and of Mann himself. Mann tells how he acquired Bashan, details traits of his character, and describes how they go on harmless and bucolic hunts. Written in 1918 at the end of the First World War, Bashan and I is an ode to life, to nature, to simple joys, and to a dog. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

When author Kenneth McKenney, his wife, and their two young children moved to Comillas in northern Spain, they knew nothing about the town. The McKenneys soon discover that Comillas was converted from a fishing village to a treasury of neo-Gothic architecture by one man-the first Marquis of Comillas-who convinced the King of Spain to stay and call his parliament there. During the McKenneys' explorations many more intriguing tales of the town were revealed. Close by are the caves of Altamira, with some of the finest rock paintings in the world, discovered when a man lost his dog. There is the beach where the second transatlantic crossing landed-by mistake. And high in the hills is the village of Garabandal, where four girls had visions of the Virgin Mary, and where a miracle is still expected. Above all, the McKenneys learnt what it is like to be the only English family in a Spanish town-where one word can make an enemy, and another a friend. In the land of the Marquis is also a book about writing a book, as the author first wrote a guide to Comillas, then extended it to cover small adventures in other parts of the world.

The year is 1742, and the people of Preston are looking forward to their ancient once-every-twenty-years festival of merriment and excess, the Preston Guild. But the prospect darkens as the town plunges into a financial crisis caused by the death of pawnbroker and would-be banker Philip Pimbo, shot behind the locked door of his office. Is it suicide? Coroner Titus Cragg suspects so, but Dr Luke Fidelis disagrees. To untangle the truth Cragg must dig out the secrets of Pimbo's personal life, learn the grim facts of the African slave trade, search for a missing Civil War treasure and deal with the machinations of his old enemy Ephraim Grimshaw, now the town's mayor. Cragg relies once again on the help and advice of his analytical friend Fidelis, his astute wife Elizabeth and the contents of a well-stocked library. As in his previous Cragg and Fidelis stories, Robin Blake brings a vivid cast of characters to the page in this third historical mystery about the dramas that breeds below the surface of life in a provincial Georgian town. "For financial buccaneering it's the 18th Century you want....The sleuths in this series are too precious for words, but what's valuable here is the author's portrait of the emergence of investment banking." -Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review