DAVID THOMPSON

Los personajes de Casablanca, Chinatown, El Padrino, El largo adiós, Lolita, El cartero siempre llama dos veces o Taxi driver son solo algunos de casi un centenar de nombres que pueblan la mente del heroe secreto de esta original novela. Escrita a base de pequeños capitulos a modo de biografias, la novela reconstruye las vidas de los personajes antes y despues de peliculas que todos conocemos formando una sola trama con multiples hilos narrativos donde se enredan, se pierden y se encuentran los grandes clasicos del cine negro norteamericano. La voz a oscuras de un esquivo narrador -cuya identidad no se revela hasta el final- tiene una mision que llevar a cabo, un ultimo caso a resolver, un pelicula definitiva a montar. Alli, Charles Foster Kane, Norma Desmond, Travis Bikle, Norman Bates, Ilsa Lund, Jack Torrance, y Gilda Farrell entre muchos otros, seran los protagonistas de la que acaso sea la mas grande novela decine jamas filmada, una verdadera sociedad noir que de la que todos, de un modo u otro, somos socios y espectadores.

The British Museum has a superb collection of clocks and watches, covering the history of horology since the medieval period in greater depth and diversity than perhaps any other collection in the world. This book features sixty-six of the rarest and finest clocks in the Museum's collection, ranging from early examples of domestic clock making to novelty clocks of the twentieth century. Many of the most celebrated makers are represented here by some of their most important works, including isaac Habrecht's famous carillon clock, made in Imitation of the great astronomical clock which he constructed in Strasbourg Cathedral in the 1570s, and the year-going clock made by Thomas Tompion for King William III. There are table clocks, astrolabic and astronomical clocks, monstrance clocks, ship's clocks, long case clocks, travelling clocks, organ clocks, observatory regulators, marine chronometers and even a cuckoo clock. The history of horology represented in this book covers a multitude of disciplines; from the history of science, the development of decorative art over the centuries, the social history of those who owned and used the clocks and the development of the art, science and industry of the clockmaker. Accompanied by numerous colour photographs, the mechanical workings and decorative aspects of each clock are illustrated and described in detail, making this the perfect introduction to a perennially fascinating subject.