Marie Antoinette's Watch

Adultery, Larceny, & Perpetual Motion

De: John Biggs

Narrado por: Rick Barr

"Marie Antoinette's Watch is a wonderful book." - William Gibson, author of Neuromancer

Across continents and into and out of the hands of royalty, revolutionaries, smugglers, thieves, and the world's greatest tech engineers, was Marie Antoinette's watch, the "160" worth an estimated $40 million in today's dollars. Perhaps the most sought after personal technology device of the last 200 years, the timepiece, designed by the legendary Abraham-Louis Breguet, is the launching point for a thrilling and fluidly woven set of narratives that are, in part, forbidden love story, historical document, and police procedural.

Marie Antoinette's Watch also deftly lays out the history of horology and the 18th Century engineering feats attained in Paris's answer to Silicon Valley, the Ile de la Cite, that made the watch the most intricate and prized personal device of its time - something that's come full circle today.

In the hands of Techcrunch's East Coast Editor, John Biggs, Marie Antoinette's Watch is by turns edifying and lurid, historical and utterly modern. Culminating in a heist in a Tel Aviv antiquities museum in the 1980s, Biggs tells the story of how one object can transform countries, cultures, high technology, and time itself.

©2015 John Biggs (P)2017 John Biggs

Great Story! Writing is good enough.

Fun, interesting, well defined historical account of watches, their technology and the individuals who made it happen. If you like historical fiction, you’ll like this book for it is the real thing but could be fiction. Enjoy! Great topics fun read!

Great Book, Narrator Needs Help

The story of the watch, the people (historic and contemporary) is great. It jumps around a bit but it’s very good. My only point of contention is the narrators ability to read French words. Watchmaking is a french language heavy industry and his mispronunciations throughout the book are hard to forgive.

Fascinating Story, Woese Narrator

I have listened to > 200 titles across genres. The story is fascinating and generally well conveyed. The narrator/reader is the worse I have heard. Not only does he botch French even English words of multiple syllables are a challenge. There is little cadence in his voice. Great narrative told by a reader who should be banned.