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. It’s a life he once had, long-since buried but buried secrets have a habit of catching up with you and nobody can outrun their own past.
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.
An author who blurs the lines between genres, blending fantasy, myth and science fiction to create some of the most inventive and enduringly popular contemporary fiction, Matt Haig is also amongst Waterstones bookseller’s favourite authors. His novels include The Radleys and The Humans as well as children’s books including A Boy Called Christmas and The Girl Who Saved Christmas. He is also the author of the Sunday Times bestseller and Waterstones non-fiction Book of the Month, Reasons to Stay Alive.
Read a Waterstones exclusive interview with Matt Haig where he discusses How to Stop Time, as well as his bestselling memoir Reasons to Stay Alive and the pull of getting lost in time.
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781782118619
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 535 g
Dimensions: 220 x 162 x 31 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
"A rollicking time-hopping fantasy . . . How to Stop Time will provoke wonder and delight." - Observer
"Hugely entertaining." - John Boyne, Irish Times
"Outlandish . . . heartwarming, perceptive prose." - Daily Telegraph
"An imaginative, ambitious novel by an author with an infectious passion for history and the human condition." - Sunday Express
"Haig writes exquisitely from the perspective of the heart-sore outsider, but at their most moving his novels reveal the unbearable beauty of ordinary life." - Guardian
"Let Matt Haig take you on a journey . . . Brings every era to vibrant life . . . original and fascinating." - Stylist
"Tear-jerking, time-hopping romance." - Mail on Sunday
"A fabulous book." - Stephen Fry
"How to Stop Time is a beautiful, and necessary book. I feel very lucky to have read it. It is magical, intriguing and at times, very sad. A triumph." - Marian Keyes
"Absolutely terrific." - Graham Norton
"My favourite book of this year, and most others. A dazzling read. Time stopped still." - Danny Wallace
"Matt Haig is a writer for children and adults who is adept at digging into the human heart." - Sunday Times
"Full of Haig's trademark humour and humanity. It is a wonderfully entertaining ride through centuries of adventure with a gloriously heart-warming message. A must read." - Sunday Mirror
"Halt everything to read Matt Haig's How to Stop Time . . . A tale that makes you fall in love with reading all over again." - The Sun
"An ambitious plot is deftly handled in this exquisitely written novel. A joy!" - Heat Magazine
"Engrossing . . . A book to relish." - Metro
"An exploration of how to make peace with one's past in a world where time seems to rush past faster than ever." - Sunday Post
"The narrator is 400 years old, but the sardonic asides give this pacy novel a modern twist. Matt Haig has designs on our heartstrings . . . The energy and zip of this book are hard to resist." - Hermione Eyre, Guardian
"A refreshing exploration of how to make peace with one's past selves." - The Herald
"Goodness. What a stunning book. Brilliant, beautiful and mindbendingly magnificent." - Jill Mansell
"A love story for the ages . . . A fresh spin on familiar ideas and, at its best, gets to the heart of what defines us as human" - iNews
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“Matt Haig’s best yet…”
Please read this book. I really wanted to say that first in case you get bored of my praise for this novel. I’ll try to be concise. If you see me in the bookshop I’ll implore you further with contented sighs and... More
“Reason's to stay alive taught me lessons on how to stay alive, How to Stop Time taught me lessons on how to live. ”
I first came into contact with Matt's writing several years ago, with The Humans and have been a huge fan ever since. The Humans is a masterpiece of both fiction and science fiction and I believe Matt's... More
“Breathtaking! A modern day Hermann Hesse.”
Tom Hazard doesn’t age. Or rather, he ages very slowly. Born in the middle ages, his mother is suspected of witchcraft to keep her son young forever. But rather than magic, it’s a condition – the opposite to Progeria,... More
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