Marie Antoinette's Watch
Adultery, Larceny, & Perpetual Motion
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Marie Antoinette's Watch
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Narrated by:
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Rick Barr
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By:
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John Biggs
About this listen
"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is the launching point for a thrilling and fluidly woven set of narratives that are, in part, forbidden love story, historical document, and police procedural.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 BiggsListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Shadows in the Vineyard
- The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine
- By: Maximillian Potter
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 264
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 235
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Story4 out of 5 stars 233
Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison - a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder - unless he paid a one million euro ransom.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Eet waz eenteresteeng
- By J. Cadow on 04-25-16
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The City of Falling Angels
- By: John Berendt
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 563
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 267
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Story4 out of 5 stars 265
The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil returns to give us an intimate look at the "magic, mystery, and decadence" of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Do Yourself a Favor and Skip This Book!
- By AUDIBLE on 10-08-05
By: John Berendt
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The Sugar King of Havana
- The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon
- By: John Paul Rathbone
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, the legendary wealth of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo remains emblematic of a certain way of life that came to an abrupt end when Fidel Castro marched into Havana. Known in his day as the King of Sugar, Lobo was for decades the most powerful force in the world sugar market, controlling vast swaths of the island's sugar interests.
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4 out of 5 stars
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VERY INFORMATIVE
- By Terry on 03-26-12
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The Map Thief
- The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps
- By: Michael Blanding
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 705
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 619
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Story4 out of 5 stars 624
Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers - both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects.
Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief - until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Study of the Strangeness of People
- By Carole T. on 12-10-14
By: Michael Blanding
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The Orpheus Clock
- The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis
- By: Simon Goodman
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
The Gutmanns, as they were known, rose from a small Bohemian hamlet to become one of Germany's most powerful banking families. They also amassed a magnificent, world-class art collection that included works by Degas, Renoir, Botticelli, Guardi, and many, many others. But the Nazi regime snatched from them everything they had worked to build: their remarkable art, their immense wealth, their prominent social standing, and their very lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Masterpiece of 21st Century History
- By Daniel Grünfeld on 09-18-19
By: Simon Goodman
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The White Road
- Journey into an Obsession
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and best-selling international sensation The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, best-selling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Marvelous and addictive
- By Elizabeth on 09-27-17
By: Edmund de Waal
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Thunderstruck
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Bob Balaban
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,459
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,873
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,871
In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men: Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication. Their lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Reader cannot read
- By Bob on 12-08-07
By: Erik Larson
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Chief Engineer
- Washington Roebling, the Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: Erica Wagner
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but after John Roebling's sudden death, Washington Roebling built what has become one of American's most iconic structures - as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognizable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten - and his life is of interest far beyond his chosen field. It is the story of immigrants, of the frontier, of the greatest crisis in American history, and of the making of the modern world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Monumental
- By charles mueller on 07-09-19
By: Erica Wagner
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The Electric War
- Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Light the World
- By: Mike Winchell
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story5 out of 5 stars 21
In the mid- to late-19th century, a burgeoning science called electricity promised to shine new light on a rousing nation. Inventive and ambitious minds were hard at work. Soon that spark was fanned, and a war was under way to be the first to light - and run - the world with electricity. Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of direct current (DC), engaged in a brutal battle with Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, the inventors of alternating current (AC). There would be no ties in this race - only a winner and a loser - and the prize was a nationwide monopoly in electric current.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very well written!
- By Amanda McCoy on 07-17-19
By: Mike Winchell
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Iberia
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 37 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 267
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 229
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Story4 out of 5 stars 231
Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Michener's Masterpiece
- By ahusmc on 09-14-17
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Eiffel's Tower
- And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris
- By: Dr. Jill Jonnes
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 87
Reminiscent of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, this fascinating account from acclaimed author Jill Jonnes recaptures the 1889 Paris World's Fair. Casting vehement criticism aside, Gustave Eiffel built his tower to be the fair's centerpiece. Perched at the top all summer, he hosted a string of dignitaries.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Just read the first half
- By Julie W. Capell on 11-08-09
By: Dr. Jill Jonnes
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Empires of Light
- Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World
- By: Jill Jonnes
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 299
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 262
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 263
In the final decades of the 19th century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America's Gilded Age - Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse - battled as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Get the book vs audio version
- By DuPont on 06-15-17
By: Jill Jonnes
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Castles, Customs, and Kings
- True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors
- By: Debra Brown, M.M. Bennetts
- Narrated by: Ruth Golding
- Length: 25 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
A compilation of essays from the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, this book provides a wealth of historical information from Roman Britain to early 20th-century England. Over 50 different authors share hundreds of real life stories and tantalizing tidbits discovered while doing research for their own historical novels.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Historical Tidbits
- By Troy on 08-03-15
By: Debra Brown, and others
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The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,407
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,818
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,817
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
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5 out of 5 stars
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McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
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Provenance
- How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art
- By: Laney Salisbury, Aly Sujo
- Narrated by: Marty Peterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 564
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 435
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 433
Here is a tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries - many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today. Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fabulous story, terrible narration almost ruined
- By Sharonia on 02-24-13
By: Laney Salisbury, and others
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Empty Mansions
- The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
- By: Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr.
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,250
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,253
When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating, But Know This...
- By Karen K on 04-08-15
By: Bill Dedman, and others
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The Woman Who Smashed Codes
- A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,533
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,954
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,942
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Captivating Biography
- By Jean on 11-20-17
By: Jason Fagone
What listeners say about Marie Antoinette's Watch
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Md95062
- 08-05-19
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!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brian Schneider
- 06-13-20
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.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Douglas McFarland
- 09-24-24
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.
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