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. Tom has lived history - performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.
So Tom moves back his to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher - the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city's history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.
How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages - and for the ages - about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.
Industry Reviews
"Matt Haig is a novelist of stunning talent, with a laser eye for the absurd and endless reserves of compassion. (Parade Picks)"--Parade "Funny, clever and quite, quite lovely."--Sunday Times (London) "Funny, poignant, and full of heart."--Entertainment Weekly "An absolute corker of a novel: very clever, and very moving, and that rare and precious thing -laugh-out-loud funny."--Daily Mail (UK) "Extraordinary."--Independent (UK) "Matt Haig has an empathy for the human condition, the light and the dark of it, and he uses the full palette to build his excellent stories."--Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline "A wonderfully funny, gripping and inventive novel."--The Times (UK) "Haig has been gifted with a rare ability, which is to make the far-fetched - and even ridiculous - seem believable. His books tickle your mind and tug on your heart, and their pages slip by with beguiling ease."--The Guardian "A brilliant exploration of what it is to love, and to be human, The Humans is both heartwarming and hilarious, weird, and utterly wonderful. One of the best books I've read in a very long time."--S.J. Watson New York Times bestselling author of Before I go to Sleep "A rollicking time-hopping fantasy . . . How to Stop Time will provoke wonder and delight."--The Observer "Inventive, exciting, moving and bursting with insight about history, time and what it is to be human."--Kate Williams, author of The Storms of War "Matt Haig's latest book, How to Stop Time, is marvelous in every sense of the word. Clever, funny, poignant, and written with Haig's trademark blend of crystalline prose and deft storytelling, this is a book that stirs the heart and mind in equal measure. A hugely enjoyable read."--Deborah Harkness author of The All Souls Trilogy "Compelling and full of life's big questions, How to Stop Time is a book you will not be able to put down."--Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project "A masterpiece. . . . Matt Haig is a supreme talent and a writer to cherish, and The Humans is undoubtedly his magnum opus."--The Guardian "Delightful."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Quick-paced, touching, and hilarious."--Library Journal (starred review)
