The Hands of Time's story is not yet finished and the sequel will be just as exciting and thought provoking!

Yeah. It went from not being able to get one person interested to a seven-way auction. So it worked out in the end. Now we’ve got the translations being sold at the moment. German, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Japanese. Bookshop.org: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/hands-of-time-a-watchmaker-s-history-of-time-rebecca-struthers/7386594?ean=9781529339031Hands of Time is an anthropology of human history through the lens of timekeeping/watches/horology. Anthropology is a subject I've only scraped the surface of in my studies so I was excited to give this book a go. Ripping the band-aid right off the bat: this is a decently dry book. I'm not talking about textbook style, but if you aren't at all interested in horology, this will be absolutely horrific to read. This is not much different than Outlander. Not as good though. But similar story with less accuracy in history. I love history. I think to get that right isn't all that hard either. So many errors that most might not notice, but I sure did. Drove me nuts. Let me start off by saying that the highest I can rate this book is a 5, but if I could rate it higher I would. Struthers is a watchmaker and academic with a PhD in antiquarian horology. Her book is more an exploration of the mechanics of time and timekeeping rather than the philosophical story of time. Still, the author explores how the development of timekeeping mechanisms has shaped religious and cultural beliefs and practices, and how this in turn has shaped our attitudes to time.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. Hands of Time is smart, curious, digressive and brisk: an engaging survey through a period of intellectual history that reveals as much about people who wear watches as the objects on their wrists." — Wall Street Journal Struthers then brings us through the golden age of watchmaking in the 1700s and 1800s, and details the major innovations of that time period. She eventually brings us all the way up to today, when many of us have Apple watches strapped to our wrists. Though we still enjoy wristwatches in a sense, the art of mechanical watchmaking is nearly lost to us. My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Harper for an advance copy on this book about time, what we make of it, how we tell it, and what our knowledge of time tells about about us.If you're someone who appreciates learning about the art of craftsmanship and the wonders of engineering, especially through shows on the History Channel, then this book is a must-read for you. An award-winning watchmaker--one of the few practicing the art in the world today--chronicles the invention of time through the centuries-long story of one of mankind's most profound technological achievements: the watch. An acclaimed expert provides a striking account of watches, their history, and their social impact. Timepieces have long accompanied us on our travels, from the depths of the oceans to the summit of Everest, the ice of the arctic to the sands of the deserts, outer space to the surface of the moon. The watch has sculpted the social and economic development of modern society; it is an object that, when disassembled, can give us new insights both into the motivations of inventors and craftsmen of the past, and, into the lives of the people who treasured them. My book is] not just watches, it’s time. And that’s a really fascinating subject. It affects us all, every day. So I’m pairing [watches] with these wider stories. [For example] comparing Hans Wilsdorf to what Albert Einstein was doing, as the two men who revolutionised our relationship with time and the 20 th Century in two very different ways. And how these two concepts relate to each other.

I gave up after book 4. It could have been great (better than this one) but I'm tired of the same old story and homosexual rape. Hands of Time” is Rebecca Struthers memoir of her experience as a watchmaker – or perhaps more accurately, as a horologist.Interestingly, she chooses one rather early in the book but is still close to the other brother. Valerie marries her new love and becomes pregnant; then tragedy strikes. Her husband becomes involved in the Gunpowder Plot, a plan to blow up the king and parliament because of repressive policies toward Catholics. What happens next is a tearjerker and makes this novel not so much a romance as a time-travel story with heavy romantic elements. As impeccably crafted and precisely engineered as any of the watches on which the author has worked so lovingly over the years, this book is a joy to behold and a wonder to enjoy.” –Simon Winchester, author of The Perfectionists and Land

Valarie has sex with Finn like, immediately after she gets there. Valarie gets pregnant and they do end up marrying. I spend whole days working on mechanisms which can contain hundreds of tiny components. Each of them has a specific task to perform. Every morning when I sit at my bench, it is an adventure into a new timepiece with its own history to lose myself in. And in their history, we can find the history of time itself.

An award-winning watchmaker—one of the few practicing the art in the world today—chronicles the invention of time through the centuries-long story of one of mankind’s most profound technological achievements: the watch. If not for this, I strongly belive I would have enjoyed this book more. Valerie seems likes a nice character, but I don't truly "know" her. She's just a bland participant in the story. And I hate feeling that way about a main character.