There's so much to say about this book, and yet it all comes down to one simple sentence: Go read How to Stop Time by the amazing Matt Haig as soon as it is released.

Tom Hazard suffers from a condition which means he ages at a remarkably slow rate. His story follows a dual narrative strand, a modern day storyline where he is working as a history teacher in London, and various scenes from his past, from Elizabethan England to exploration in the South Seas to jazz age Paris. How does a person cope with living that long? What happens when Tom lives a normal lifetime, then another, and another? When most people are aging at a normal pace and he isn't?

Reading this book was a remarkable experience. I both wanted to keep reading avidly until the end, but also to savour each sentence and make the journey of reading the story last. Even now I've finished, though, the reading voyage resonates. The book as a whole explores the profoundness of being human, and the story and thoughts of Tom are written in such a way as to provide the reader with an accessible insight into the range of human emotions.

There's a tenderness about How To Stop Time, a tolerance and acceptance of the frailty of the human mind, the different stages of growth and learning that individuals undergo.

And it's a damn good story! Haig's writing distils Tom's story down in a style that is beautifully simple, and resonates with the reader, tapping into the hidden and not-so secret emotions that fill the lives of humans.

I've never read anything of Matt Haig's before, and admittedly I requested this because of curiosity of his writing and the fact it's already been accepted to be made onto the silver screen (with Benedict Cumberbatch, no less)

I became immediately immersed in this world and the albas. The writing style was intricate and moving, and at many points the mystery of it all sank me deeper into the story. I really enjoyed Tom's perspective, while stiff at times it fit someone with so much history on his shoulders.

I'm definitely looking forward to this being adapted.

This is one for fans of The Time Travellers' Wife, or anyone who enjoys fiction without a linear story. Part reflection on what it is to be human, part love story, How To Stop Time is a reminder that despite the horrors that humanity likes to inflict upon itself, there is still hope and beauty to be found in love, in life, and in friendship.

Review Fantastic premise and can see why it has been snapped up as a film, however I didn't love it which I thought I would. could not really immerse myself in it.

Calling a book life-affirming is an overused cliché. In How To Stop Time, Matt Haig once again creates a novel that holds up a mirror up to life and mental health issues to show a character dealing with their problems and coping with being different. He doesn’t so much affirm life as offer up a story about the freedom to live and to really feel like you are living.

Tom Hazard looks like he is a forty-one year old History teacher in a London comprehensive. Actually, he is older - a lot older - due to a rare condition that slows down aging. He was born in the sixteenth century and played lute for Shakespeare and piano amongst the Roaring Twenties, but now he is hiding from the past, trying to stop memories from catching up with him and not daring to think about having a future. For preservation, he is not allowed to fall in love. However, the past, the present, and the future have all decided that they have a date with him and Tom finds himself facing up to who he is and what he wants from his very long life.

Haig writes with a kind of honest straightforwardness that is similar to his other books, a style which brings the character’s insecurities and thoughts right to the surface and creates an emotional book. It is from Tom’s point of view and jumps between the present and his long past in a memory style. This means that much of the book is more focused on thoughts, introspection, and inaction than events occurring (perhaps Tom should’ve had a few words with Shakespeare about Hamlet). The narrative is simple and not particularly original - person alive for centuries runs into famous people, meditates on lost love, looks for others with similar longevity - but the real selling point is the way that Haig makes it more about learning to actually live life and not being fixated on the past or panicked about the future.

There are a number of particularly endearing details and characters, such as the Tahitian Omai becoming a modern surfing star who believes in living your life to the full. Haig’s descriptions of the Roaring Twenties stand out as getting across both the all-consuming feel of the period and poking slight fun at it appearing as an epitome in a similar vein to the opening of A Tale of Two Cities. The extended appearance of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, with witchhunting and Shakespeare and the plague, are less exciting, but give a good base for Tom and his views of the world.

By the ending, Haig answers his promising title and shows a character learning to reclaim the chance to live his own life how he wants to, with less fear of the future or the past. The book’s messages will resonate with overthinkers and anxious individuals wanting to escape their own headspace and live, but also anybody who enjoys a character-focused tale of love, life, and history.

Tom Hazard is old, really old. A rare condition means he ages incredibly slowly; he has been alive for centuries. He lives by a set of rules including not staying in one place for too long and never getting to close to us 'mayflies'. But can you really live your life in isolation? I love Matt Haig's books and this didn't disappoint. How to Stop Time will stay with me for a while. I raced through it and was sad to reach the end. Haig draws such human, sympathetic characters that, despite the fantastical element to the story, you can't help but identify with them. I often found myself highlighting passages when his words resonated with me; T0m's struggles are my struggles, his hopes are mine. It's as if Haig can see into my soul. I'm sure other readers will feel the same way. With a touch of mystery and drama, the narrative flows well as we move back and forth from the present to the past, garnering clues as to how Tom has come to be the man he is over 400 years of existence. Ultimately, it is a book about finding and accepting yourself, and allowing others to accept you too. I hope I can follow in Tom Hazard's footsteps.

This is an engrossing and easy read, tackling an ambitious premise with an ease and simplicity that is beguiling. A novel which spans centuries and locations across the world from Arizona to Tahiti, Tom Hazard's search for the things he's lost over his long life is complicated by his membership of a secret society whose aims and intentions become ever more sinister as the story progresses.

Matt Haig’s How To Stop Time tells the story of Thomas Hazard, a four-hundred year old history teacher working in London. Because of a rare medical condition he ages very very slowly; he’s not immortal, the passage of time just affects him at a much slower rate than the average human. He was born in the 16th century and has lived in Elizabethan England (yes, he’s met Shakespeare), worked as a pianist in Jazz Age Paris, sailed the high seas with Captain Cook, and spent the Second World War as an asthmatic librarian in America. His centuries of experience mean than he’s very well suited to being a history teacher and Haig, whilst marginally ignoring that unfortunately a lot of history teaching involves teaching to the curriculum and teaching students how to jump through particular hoops to gain marks, provides snippets of a masterclass in how to make students think about history as lived events not just dates on the page of a textbook.

Tom has spent most of his extended life in mourning for his first love, Rose, who he met in Elizabethan England, and their daughter, Marion. He left the family for their own safety; he’d already survived one witch hunt and another was brewing. Unlike Rose, however, Marion is another ‘alba’ (named for being a member of the Albatross Club, or a club of people with the same genetic anomaly as Tom, and named thus because of the popular superstition that albatrosses had very lengthy lifespans) and Tom has been searching for her for centuries to no avail.

The shadowy nature of the Albatross Club is creepy, with its hints of medical testing and secretive research institutes, and the idea of switching lives every eight years to avoid suspicion is sad. Eight years isn’t very long even in a regular human lifespan, let alone in one which can last hundreds and hundreds of years. The impetus to move on is even greater in modern life – we photograph our lives much more, and the lack of any change in appearance is even more visible. Ultimately Tom has to decide if he can act on having fallen in love, if he can trust his new love with his secret, and if he is going to stand up to the leader of the Albatross Club, all whilst hoping his students pass their exams. This novel is a complete page-turner – there’s a mystery plot and tons of historical detail and there’s romance – so it’s no surprise that it’s already had the film rights purchased. I don’t think I’d have gone with Benedict Cumberbatch as Tom, personally, but he’ll sell tickets. (I’d have gone for Tom Hollander, but ho hum.)

I'm sorry I couldn't get into this book at present will try again in the future