How to Stop Time - Hardcover

Matt Haig

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1782118616 ISBN 13: 9781782118619

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2017

Synopsis

"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.'"

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

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 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 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.

About this title

About the Author

MATT HAIG suffered a breakdown in his early twenties. After battling depression for a long time he turned to writing, and he now believes that reading and writing books saved his life. His novels include the bestsellers The Last Family in England, The Radleys and The Humans, which in Canada was a Costco Buyer’s Pick and has sold approximately 15,000 copies. His books have been translated into thirty languages. All his novels for adults have been optioned for film. Matt lives in York with his wife and their two children.

Review

“A masterpiece. . . . Matt Haig is a supreme talent and a writer to cherish, and The Humans is undoubtedly his magnum opus.” (The Guardian)

“A wonderfully funny, gripping and inventive novel.” (The Times (UK))

“Delightful.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

“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)

“Matt Haig is a novelist of stunning talent, with a laser eye for the absurd and endless reserves of compassion. (Parade Picks)” (Parade)

“Quick-paced, touching, and hilarious.” (Library Journal (starred review))

Edition details

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1782118616
• ISBN 13: 9781782118619
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 325