How to Stop Time: A Novel
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library, “a quirky romcom dusted with philosophical observations….A delightfully witty…poignant novel.” (The Washington Post)
Soon to be a TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch
How many lifetimes does it take to learn how to live?
Don’t miss Matt Haig’s new novel The Life Impossible, coming September 2024
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity he can keep one step ahead of his past - and stay alive. The only thing he must not do is fall in love . . .
Soon to be a TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch
How many lifetimes does it take to learn how to live?
Don’t miss Matt Haig’s new novel The Life Impossible, coming September 2024
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity he can keep one step ahead of his past - and stay alive. The only thing he must not do is fall in love . . .
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Readers say *How to Stop Time* offers a unique and thought-provoking concept about a man aging slowly across centuries. Many appreciate Matt Haig’s en...
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How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
325 pages
What’s it about?
How would you choose to live if you were going to live centuries? How would your relationships work? How would people receive you? Well in this novel we meet Tom Hazard. It is the present day and Tom is still alive and well, yet Tom was born in 1581…
What did it make me think about?
This is an imaginative story of a man who does not age at the normal rate. I am a sucker for time travel novels and this book shares some with that genre.
Should I read it?
This was a fun book that also made some interesting observations. It has a good main character and a plot that moves along. It would make a great vacation read!
Quote-
“I often think of what Hendrich said to me, over a century age, in his New York apartment.
‘The first rule is that you don’t fall in love’, he said. ‘There are other rules too, but that is the main one. No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. If you stick to this you will just about be okay.’”
If you liked this try-
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His yeats of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Exit West by Moshin Hamid
*Levels of Life by Julian Barnes
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
325 pages
What’s it about?
How would you choose to live if you were going to live centuries? How would your relationships work? How would people receive you? Well in this novel we meet Tom Hazard. It is the present day and Tom is still alive and well, yet Tom was born in 1581…
What did it make me think about?
This is an imaginative story of a man who does not age at the normal rate. I am a sucker for time travel novels and this book shares some with that genre.
Should I read it?
This was a fun book that also made some interesting observations. It has a good main character and a plot that moves along. It would make a great vacation read!
Quote-
“I often think of what Hendrich said to me, over a century age, in his New York apartment.
‘The first rule is that you don’t fall in love’, he said. ‘There are other rules too, but that is the main one. No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. If you stick to this you will just about be okay.’”
If you liked this try-
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His yeats of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Exit West by Moshin Hamid
*Levels of Life by Julian Barnes
3.75/5 ⭐️ I truly enjoyed the stories of a man who had been alive since the days of Shakespeare, but ultimately the story fell short when it came to romance and the main plot of finding his daughter. The main character was certainly immature given how "old" he is meant to be.
Mediocre book that didn’t hold my interest. The man character is over 400 years old and has a condition which slows down the aging process. He meets some other “albas” along the way and they form a society to protect them. He runs across too many historical characters to be plausible. One or two but this strains credulity.
I loved the sweeping nature of time the reader gets to experience in this story. I was rooting for Tom and invested in his happiness and finding his daughter. As well as feeling the ache of the broken heart he has without his long lost love.
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