It is easy to see why How To Stop Time is being developed into a film, everything about the book screams that it is ideal for that purpose.
This is the first Matt Haig book I have read and I was pleasantly surprised. How To Stop Time was a real page turner and despite being very busy I found myself finishing it in a day.
Tom Hazard has a deadly secret.
Despite appearing to be a history teacher in his early 40s, Tom is actually several centuries older than that. He has a rare condition which means he ages much slower than other humans. He has seen some extraordinary things and also lived through some heartbreak.
Tom is finding it increasingly difficult to keep memories of the past at bay and he is in danger of breaking the cardinal rule: Don’t Fall In Love.
‘I am old.
That is the main thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about Forty, but you would be very wrong.’
Tom was born more than 400 years earlier in March 1581 in a chateau in France. The condition he has develops around puberty and causes him to age only one year for every fifteen or so that pass. In addition it helps protect him from most viral and bacterial infections.
One of the main rules Tom lives by is this:
‘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 ok.’
Tom receives this advice from a man named Hendrich. Hendrich has the same condition as Tom and has founded a group for others like him called The Albatross Society. Hendrich picked the name because at the time the Albatross was believed to have a long life-span. He calls himself and others like him ‘albas’ for short and offers them protection and new identities every eight years but in order to receive this he must carry out a task for Hendrich in between each new placement.
Hendrich says they need to follow the rule on falling in love to avoid falling prey to a shadowy company in Berlin that wants to use them for anti-ageing testing.
Tom has thought about leaving the Albatross society many times but has been searching for someone for centuries without any luck and knows that Hendrich will probably have better luck than him at finding her. That is what keeps him involved with this man who deep down he feels contempt for.
“That was the depressing thing about knowing other albas. You realised that we weren’t superheroes. We were just old. And that, in cases such as Hendrich, it didn’t really matter how many years or decades or centuries had passed, because you were always living within the parameters of your personality. No expanse of time or place could change that. You could never escape yourself.”
Tom’s latest identity sees him returning to London as a history teacher. Whilst there he fights to keep the past at bay and to stop himself from breaking Hendrich’s rule and falling in love.
Matt Haig takes the reader on a journey to times when people believed in witchcraft, a meeting with Shakespeare, and a journey to America. His writing really manages to bring the past to life.
How to Stop Time reminded me of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and also elements of The Green Mile. I enjoyed reading it and following Tom Hazard’s journey through time.

A long lived person struggles with his soul and love. Nicely written adventure/drama across time, for an audience new to the ideas. A quick and absorbing read.



spoiler follows:




Matt Haig should really not have alluded to that book about a long-lived vampire as I couldn't stop comparing the two after that point.

This is in the same time travelling genre as The Time Traveller's Wife (Niffeneger) , Highlander , TV's Quantum Leap or Benjamin Button.

Tom Hazzard was born in Renaissance France. Even in modern day London he only looks about 41- he has a hyperlongevity condition.

The story begins with Tom's mother , having fled to England with Tom into religious exile, being accused of witchcraft.
Running alongside, there is the story of modern day Tom who is about to start teaching history in a modern London secondary school and who is attracted to another teacher. However he is warned off falling in love by the darkly glittering Hendrich who is head of the society of "albas", other people who have the same condition as Tom. He disdainfully refers to mortals as mayflies.


We know Tom is on a quest which gives him a "reason to live" (see Haig's book of that title) to find his daughter who is also an "alba"., whom he hasn't seen since the 1600s.

There are several places and historical times depicted. The strongest sense of atmosphere was in the depiction of Elizabethan England with the (maybe ubiquitous) involvement with Shakespeare and The Globe.

The school scenes in modern day England were sketchy . Tom seems to just talk "at" his students . Where are the interactive whiteboards ? Also , there is the stereotypical teacher inspires a student who was "on the wrong path" subplot. Other times and places , Cook's voyages , Paris etc are even more briefly inserted.

This was a very readable book. I know it was saying a lot about time, our perception of time and the "self"

"I suppose the way I understand my life is as a kind of Russian doll, with different versions inside other versions, each one enclosing the other..."

I had most lately enjoyed Haig's children's Christmas books and was looking forward to this book. However I felt that Haig didn't quite achieve the "depth" that would have made this ( nevertheless enjoyable ) book a philosophical meditation on the natures of self and time. There are all the musings but it doesn't reach the complexity I think for which it was was aiming . T.S Eliot's Four Quartets famously recognises the inability of language to capture the elusive nature of time and maybe this is what happened to this book.

One of my "measuring sticks" by which I assess a book is will people be asking for this book in my bookshop in 2/3 years time? . For me the answer is probably not although I enjoyed this as an entertaining read. I suppose it ends nearer to Larkin's "what will remain of us is love" Larkin's "..what will survive of us is love" as it it is love that Tom discovers to be the most important "reason to live"

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

Tom Hazard is 439 years old. Yep, 439. He has a rare genetic condition that means he ages a lot slower than the average human, so despite his true years he still looks like he is in his 40s.

Straight away, I was hooked – I find this such a fascinating concept. Here we have a man who has been alive for thousands of years, he has lived through numerous historical events and adapted as the world has changed. Plot wise, there’s potentially a lot to pack in, but the selective years of Tom’s life that we delve into are so well done, it’s essentially a highly enjoyable romp through history – from Tom sailing with Captain Cook, to getting a job with Shakespeare and having a few drinks with F.Scott Fitzgerald – the appearance of these influential figures really does give a charming edge to the narrative.

Tom goes by several names throughout the book, as he has to change his identity to avoid his secret being revealed. This is all done through the Albatross Society, founded by a fellow long-lifer, Julian, the aim is to keep the ‘Albas’ (as they are known) out of the hands of scientists, who would just love to dissect them and see what makes them tick for so long. Every eight years the Albas must create a new identity and move to a new place. We meet Tom just as he embarks on one of these new identities (in the modern day), as an unassuming history teacher in London – a truly fitting profession being that he was a first hand witness to the events he’s teaching.

As well as a new identity every eight years, he is sent out on assignments to recruit others like him, while all the time looking for a specific person he is obsessed with finding.

Although living so long may sound like a wonderful thing, this book delves into the negatives too. How do you maintain relationships with people that age at a normal pace? How do you keep your sense of self when you have to change who you are every eight years?

I could have read so much more about Tom’s life, discovering what he got up to in all the years that were not mentioned, I was really engrossed in this story – thought-provoking and effortlessly written, I found this to be a unique and beautiful read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC. Published 6th July 2017.

As always, it is is Matt Haig's incredible empathy (and his skill at expressing that empathy) which leaps from every page of this astonishing book. The story is beautiful, mind-bending and truly engrossing, but it also conjures that wonderful feeling which brings me back to literature time and time again - it makes me feel less alone in the world.

I'm in the middle of university exams so not in a position to write a full review at the moment -- hopefully, I'll be able to do that over the summer. In the meantime, I've left a brief note on Goodreads (copied below) and will expand on it in future. :)

I enjoyed this, though in places the writing style was too choppy for my tastes (lots of short sentences). Then again, I'm a sucker for grumpy immortals struggling with self checkout machines and always will be. I also love the idea of somebody teaching history that they lived through. Maybe it's because I've written a couple of immortal characters, or because of my interest in obscure corners of history where just one or two eyewitness accounts would totally revolutionise our understanding of them (seriously, if I had a time machine I'd go straight to the Picts and check out what was actually going on), but there's something about that which catches my interest. I did feel somewhat caught out by Tom's reunion with his daughter, though; while the book was building up to it, it still seemed to come out of nowhere, and I felt it could've been expanded on a bit more.

Ever wanted more time? Wouldn't it be useful to live longer, learn more, have more experience, travel... How about 600-700 years?
This is the premise of Matt Haig's new book - some people, referred to as Albas, live for hundreds of years, and age imperceptibly. The story is narrated by Tom very much in the present day, despite being born in the 1500s. Tom is a member of The Albatross Society, led by mysterious millionaire Heinrich, who help and protect albas when they run into trouble. And Tom knows about trouble, with a mother put to death for being a witch, ostracised from his wife by rumour and gossip before she died of the Great Plague, and always searching for his daughter alba daughter Miranda.
The past haunts Tom, as he walks down streets he remembers them from years before, but the future and the possibility of finding Miranda is the only thing that keeps him from doing himself harm.
This has a lot to say about the present, about human nature, of the dangers of separating people because they are different, and how we can so easily be sucked into hatred and fear. There are moments when you fear he's got too preachy, that the book is a front for an essay. But on the whole, these moments can be forgiven because essentially it's also a book about love, about the spell it holds over us. I enjoyed it.

There's something about Matt Haig's writing that instantly appeals; it's vital without being convoluted, poetic without being pretentious, sentimental without being saccharine. How To Stop Time is no different: here we have a tale of heartache and hope, of the frailty of human existence, and of what it means to truly be alive.

Time is something that Tom Hazard (or Smith, or Winters, or Edward Cribs, or any other name he might have gone by) has plenty of. In over four hundred years, he's lived and run and lived again, always afraid of the future and plagued by his past and always pursued by the desperate longing to find his daughter, Marion. For over a century, he's been part of the underground Albatross Society. Headed by Hendrich, a man just like Tom - a man who ages far slower than everybody else and who is certain that this must be kept secret - who, in return for deeds done, arranges new lives once suspicion rises (as it always does), advises against personal attachments, and promises Tom that he will be reunited with Marion. After all, she is just like him, too. But does Hendrich really have Tom's best interests at heart? Can any of the fleeting lives Tom touches truly be trusted?

And there are plenty of those: from the fun to the repugnant to the enchanting, Matt Haig crafts people as deftly as he does an age. They are all dimensional, flawed, human, and they are all memorable. Each historical and geographical setting is rich and believable, each emotion beautifully wrought.

This big heart will come as no surprise if you are familiar with Matt Haig's work, yet will delight all the same. Written as a series of memories interlocking with present events, Tom's story is revealed through shifts in century and scene. Rather than confusing or disengaging, this is engrossing; the truth unfolds in an ever-swelling crescendo that explodes in the astonishing climax. The title itself is taken from Reasons To Stay Alive, but there are parallels beyond that alone: Tom's detachment and loneliness, his racing mind and heart, the relentlessness of his roaring thoughts are suggestive of struggles with mental health. Although he fears it, ultimately it is emotion that brings Tom alive; here we reach the crux of this book and even of human existence itself.

Like that title, and indeed, Matt's other work, the text is laced with hope. The secret to stopping time, it seems, is not to try to stop it at all, not to cling to the past or cower from the unknowable future, but simply to live. A most timely message in the digital age, and also an echo of Tom's brief mentor-of-sorts: to be or not to be? The solution is to be.

Were the question to read or not to read this book, the answer would always be to read.

There is a sense of poignancy in Matt Haig’s riveting new novel, How To Stop Time, that almost seems to gently seep from the pages and gather, like a fine mist, around you.
I’ll be honest and tell you that, at the moment, I’m quite a lazy reader (see sleep deprivation). I don’t want to work too hard for my entertainment - and reading a book where the story is one thing but you know that it’s clearly about something else, something much bigger, probably wouldn’t be my first choice.
In Matt's case, though? I’d be willing to do hard labour.
Not that this book feels like an especially difficult read; the story flows easily and the only thing hard about it is putting it down. His prose is beautiful and honest and while it feels wrong to say I enjoyed it when the story made my heart ache, I was charmed by it.
I can completely understand why the film rights were snapped up so quickly.
This is Matt’s first book for adults in four years. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about his writing is that he not only seems to have an innate understanding of humanity but he can translate that to the page, for whatever audience he is writing for, in a way that is so vivid.
The story switches between past and present and, if I didn’t know better, I would think he had experienced those different historical periods in person because he made it so visual (has he just given himself away?)
I’m not going to say too much more because I think its one of those books where people will take different things from it – and I don’t want my experience to influence yours.
I will say that if you’re not already a fan of Matt Haig, you will be after reading How To Stop Time.

With thanks to Canongate Books (via NetGalley) for the ARC in return for my honest review.

Love Matt Haig and loved this book. It was a great storyline - I do also love a time travel story as well so everything was in place and it didn't fail to deliver. Recommended.

A thought-provoking gripping read that takes you on a journey through time, yet consistently looks at the age-,old issues of love, grief & acceptance.
A genetic condition means that whilst everyone around him grows up and grows old, Tom Hazard ages much more slowly and had been alive for centuries.
The dangers of being different in society doesn't seem to ease over the decades; haunted by tragedy Tom tries to survive each present by moving about, avoiding personal ties and working for a secret society that protects others with the same condition. But Tom learns along his journey that you're never too old to learn the real truth about love and life.
Cleverly written with such captivating prose and a brilliance that stays with you even after you finish.

DNF at 24%.

I love a time travel story, [book:The Time Traveler's Wife|14050], [book:Marking Time|27401657], [book:Just One Damned Thing After Another|29661618], [book:Doomsday Book|24983], [book:Crossing in Time|24934981], and [book:Out of Time|8122928] to name just a few, I love them all. So when I saw this book on NetGalley I was very excited.

I really liked the blurb: <blockquote>I am old. That is the first thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong.'
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot, and now craves an ordinary life.
Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover - working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he'd never witnessed them first-hand. He can try and tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom mustn't do is fall in love. </blockquote>

Unfortunately, I found the writing very stilted and it read more like an oral witness statement than a novel, not assisted by the first person POV style of writing. There was a lot of 'telling' rather than 'showing'. Tom appears to be a four hundred year old man who is still being pushed around by some mysterious society and its henchman Hendrich, he seems to be one of life's victims and doesn't seem to have wised up despite his longevity. The novel flits around present day, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, now, 1623 etc but we aren't there for more than a page or two before we go elsewhere - I just can't keep the characters and the story straight in my head.

So, a quarter of the way into the book, I'm bailing, I have no idea what is going on and Tom isn't that engaging a protagonist.

It's Matt Haig so of course my expectations were sky high and as usual Matt met and exceeded them. This is a beautiful, poignant and slightly whimsical story about a man who ages far more slowly than most people and has been alive for centuries. Tom is an engaging character and as a tour guide on our tourist trip through time I think you could scarce have a better narrator. Haig has a way of giving you the world, quietly and without ceremony, but somehow differenly in every one of his books. He manages to convey the vaguries of human nature with beautiful clean prose and just a toucb of pathos. This is one not to be missed.

Absolutely loved every second of this. It is so beautiful, poetic and emotive.

I liked this book. I didn't LOVE it, but I certainly liked it. It was nice. Pleasant. Inoffensive. An enjoyable way to pass a few hours. I would recommend this to anyone who ..., well, anyone actually. I think this book would have a really wide appeal.

This is a time shifting novel which is a cross between Interview With A Vampire and The TIme Traveller's Wife. Slightly over-hyped which for me detracted from my enjoyment but otherwise this mix of love story and history, populated by real life figures, works very well.

I loved this book; the perfect mix of imagination and profundity. Another brilliant read from Matt Haig.

Ok, so fair warning because I’m nice like that: I’m about to go CAPSLOCKING italicising fangirling CRAZY. If that’s not your thing, if you want me to sit here and sedately say ‘oh yas, that book was rather good’ well, now be the time to close your browser and go and do something else and I promise I won’t be offended because you see, the thing is, is that I just read Matt Haig’s How To Stop Time and I don’t know what to do really, other than keysmash a little bit about the beauty that is this book.

Seriously.

IT’S SO FUCKING GOOD.

Book love. I am totes in book love. This book is book of the year for me so far. I want more stars. If Goodreads would let me give a book ten stars then I WOULD GIVE THIS BOOK TEN STARS. I love it that much.

& I don’t know much about Matt Haig. I have How To Stay Alive and A Boy Called Christmas on my bookshelf but I haven’t read either of them (why have I not read either of them what is my life what are my choices) and I made grabby hands at this book purely because I follow Matt on Twitter where he’s pretty excellent and also because the blurb.

This is the blurb, actually. It’s a good one.


'I am old. That is the first thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong.'
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot, and now craves an ordinary life. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover - working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he'd never witnessed them first-hand. He can try to tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom must not do is fall in love. How to Stop Time is a wild and bittersweet story about losing and finding yourself, about the certainty of change and about the lifetimes it can take to really learn how to live.

Anyhow. Yes. I read the blurb and was a a bit like YES I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS and now here I am, I’ve read it and I loved it and #seducemewithprettywords. This book, I suspect, will be shoved down the thoughts of all the people I know ever except not actually all because that would be ridiculous and I’ve already pre-ordered an actual copy because some books are too special to just live on my Kindle and LEMME TALK AT YOU ABOUT IT A LITTLE BIT PLEASE.

It’s so beautiful.

That’s the first thing and you know how I’m a total sucker for the pretty words used prettily. Haig does that. His writing is lush.

It’s more than that though, it’s more than just excellent prose, it’s….I dunno. He knows his subject. I mean if we assume that what his subject is, is human nature obvs and not you know, a person who has been alive for all of time. Human nature. He knows that.
& he knows me.
Which, well, that might be the weirdest thing I have ever written on this blog because obviously there is no way that Matt Haig sitting wherever Matt Haig sits, and I know not where that is except it’s not here, knows a single thing about me. He doesn’t know me. That’s ridiculous. SO HOW THEN? Tell me, HOW DOES HE WORDS. HOW DO YOU DO IT MATT HAIG?! How do I feel, truly, like he knows me; I feel better for having read this book, I honestly do.

Anyway. I wash my hands of my own weirdness. I don’t think I’m making sense, much. Back to the point that seemed to make a little sense: Human nature. He seems to know it in the way that suggests he sees things, like if you were in a room with him, he’d be taking all in, aware of actions and reactions and interactions and gestures and tone of voice that let him see far beyond whatever’s on the surface. This book goes deep, like, this book is not about me, oh I’m back to that again. I’m sorry, I think we’re just going to have to go with it. This book is not about me. There is nothing about this book that resembles my life and yet, and yet, somehow I feel like Matt Haig has taken a look into my very soul and ain’t that just something?

It’s compelling writing also, writing that gets under your skin and draws you in and it’s absolutely 100% definitely what is known as A Page Turner. I could not stop doing the page turning. I did not want to do anything other than inhabit this world. These worlds I guess because this book spans hundreds of years. I was hoping the title was literal actually because how to stop time, that’s a thing I definitely wanted to know. I wanted time to stop whilst I read. I wanted nothing but what was going on in those pages.

Also the history. I love history. This is a book that brings history to life and I loved that and it made me laugh and actually I don’t know if it was supposed to but it did, it made me laugh and it made me teary and it made me lose sight of myself for a little while and it’s…it’s incredible storytelling is what it is. Storytelling the way storytelling should be: the taking of the impossible and making it entirely convincing and believable and wonderful.

It’s escapism.

It’s a fucking treat and I loved it.

How To Stop Time will be published in July. Read it, please please please read it.

If you haven't seen the books, How to Stay Alive or The Humans by Matt Haig floating around BookTube, the blogosphere or just anywhere, where have you been? I have not read either books, but I know that Matt Haig is an author who is greatly admired within the book community. When I was given the opportunity to read How to Stop Time, I jumped at the chance to read this book, and oh what a wonderful book it was!

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret.

He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot, and now craves an ordinary life. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover - working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he'd never witnessed them first-hand. He can try and tame the past that is fast catching up with him.

The only thing Tom mustn't do is fall in love.

I didn't think that I would like this book at first. The novel starts off by introducing us to the character of Tom, a man who is over four-hundred years old. From the synopsis, it gives off the feel of a romance novel... It is and it isn't. The main focus - for me - wasn't romance; it was travelling through time and experiencing different periods of history. It was just absolutely fascinating to be able to read about the jazz age, meeting Shakespeare and Scott Fitzgerald... Who wouldn't want to read about those times? Of course, the romance was adorable to read and I really felt the heartbreak that Tom would feel over the years.

The characters were also brilliantly written. There were characters that I loved and characters that I loved to hate, that of Hendrich. He was awful! I get that he was just trying to keep the Albas safe, and make sure that they were never found out, but jeez... He was just horrible, and especially at the end! He finally shows his true colours and I just wanted to punch him in the face. He angered me so much! Just let Tom live in peace, let him live how he wants to; I just wanted him to be okay...





"The longer you live, the more you realise that nothing is fixed. Everyone will become a refugee if they live long enough. Everyone would realise their nationality means little in the long run. Everyone would see their worldviews challenged and disproved. Everyone would realise that the thing that defines a human is being a human."

- Matt Haig, How to Stop Time





I feel like this is a book that will give something different to each reader. For me, this book told me that I should do things for me, and not anyone else. I shouldn't have to do certain things just to please someone. If they don't like the way that I live, then that doesn't matter. This was an important lesson for me to learn through this book because I am always doing things to please other people and not myself.

Matt Haig is an absolutely brilliant author who captures what it's like to be human perfectly. He conveys the beauty and the horror of living, how nasty humans can be, but also how understanding and beautiful they are; how accepting they are and I feel like this is the perfect novel to read during the difficulty of the present day world. This is a book that explores the beauty of human life and the things that we take for granted: music, art, love, family, and most of all, the world.

I cried when I finished this book. I cried at the beauty of it. And when I finished reading the last word, I turned back to the first page and started to read it again.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Released 6th July

This was easy to read, but (for me) dissatisfying. I loved the concept...a man who ages so very, very slowly that he has lived through multiple centuries - brilliant! But I felt it fell flat in the execution. I previously read 'The Humans' by Matt Haig, which I enjoyed, though it sometimes felt clunky. This book was sort of okay, and this time the writing often felt clunky, which was frustrating because sometimes Haig's turn of phrase is really beautiful, and crafted, and wonderful. So when whole chapters just chug by it's frustrating, as you want it to be better.

My biggest bugbear, which has been mentioned by other reviewers, was the meeting of all the famous people. Really? Really? The character ages slowly, and has lived through all this history, and he just so happened to run into Shakespeare and get given a job, and his just happened to end up on Captain Cook's ship? Was he just magnetically drawn to all these people who were on the cusp of making history? Those parts made me groan the way you do when someone starts talking about her past life and she was, guaranteed, Cleopatra. It messed things up too much for me, as a reader. I can see why it was helpful, as it made him a super teacher, having all those experiences, but it just made the story less believable.

I enjoyed Rose's character, as she would brook no nonsense. I also liked the current day parts of the book more than the historical moments. It's a fast read, and I can see many others who have enjoyed it, which is good, but it was too frustrating for me.