How to Stop Time

De: Matt Haig

Narrado por: Mark Meadows

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library.

“A quirky romcom dusted with philosophical observations….A delightfully witty…poignant novel.” —The Washington Post

“She smiled a soft, troubled smile and I felt the whole world slipping away, and I wanted to slip with it, to go wherever she was going… I had existed whole years without her, but that was all it had been. An existence. A book with no words.”

Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom 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.

Unfortunately for Tom, 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.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Great build up to unsatisfying finale (Spoilers)

Mark Meadows was amazing. I genuinely enjoyed his performance of How to Stop Time.

I enjoyed the first 2/3rd's of this book. The build up was very amazing. I truly enjoyed how Tom's life was introduced as needed to pregress the story. We are introduced too Grace by name at the scene of Rose's death. When Grace is initially introduced, she almost didn't matter, but she goes on to be an important part of the story. As her importance in the story grew, this scene tiny reference grows in significance.

The prime mystery of this novel is Tom finding his missing daughter. Haig really built up the importance of this eventual reunion. The reunion was forced, "Oh, I'm just going to head off in a direction and get ambushed by my daughter while day dreaming," approach to resolving the conflict. It was obvious early on Hendrich knew about Tom's daughter, and that he was probably manipulating her just like Hendrich was manipulating Tom.

Hendrich's death was ridiculous at best. This man has seemingly spent him life trying to guarantee his life, but then suddenly douses himself in petrol and lights himself on fire? I just don't find the characters suicide is a realistic conclusion to the story. The suicide felt like a convenient Ex Machina Haig used to insure that Tom, nor Marion, had to commit murder.

I do recommend the story for all the great story building, but don't expect a conclusion worthy of the build up. The disappointment in this story is that it was such a great story with a great idea, but the conclusion prevents this story from being a great novel.

Beautiful language

This book took me a few chapters to get into, but once I found the rhythm of the story, I really appreciated it. The language was beautiful, and the author had such insightful exposition about life, relationships and time. I LOVED the historical sightseeing and meeting of famous characters like Shakespeare, Fitzgerald and Chaplin. The author must have done a lot of research to touch on so many time periods and settings. The narrator took me a bit to adjust to (most books I listen to have female narrators). His British voice was soothing. But he did a good job with both genders and various accents. Great performance!

age-old wisdom and old-fashioned love story

I really enjoyed this book's combination of age-old wisdom and old-fashioned love story. Try this book if:
- you are going through a tough time and need a reminder of what life is all about
- you are feeling like society is falling apart and need some perspective
- you've ever felt like your insides don't match your outsides
- You feel like life is going by too fast
- You feel like life is going by too slowly
- you just want to read a good book

[I listened to this as an audio book performed wonderfully by Mark Meadows]

Unique story!

This was a truly enjoyable story! Great narrator, unique story, interesting characters. The timeline was easy to follow, too.

Wonderful

I love everything about this, the story and the performance . It makes me think of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

A clever and thought provoking look at life

What a great way to learn about how we live our lives through time, travel, relationships and emotions.
The reader has a great ability with different voices and the author's descriptive writing style really brings the characters and settings to life.
This is our second book we've listened to by the author and we'll definitely be choosing more! Hope you enjoy it too.

Fabulous!

I love this author. He is magically entertaining. His books are brilliant self help stories of triumph. Meaningful jewels I want to read everything he’s ever written!

Great narrator, slow story

Tom Hazard has a condition that causes him to age slower than normal. Though he looks 41, he's actually 400+ and has been longing for a lost love most of that time while bounding around the globe. Great premise!

But...

Though the narrator was awesome !!), I didn't connect with this book. I recognize I'm in a minority, judging by fellow Goodreads reviews. I fear my appreciation of this was sullied by having read "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue," which was phenomenal. This one had lovely writing, but the plot was slow and I had a hard time identifying with the protagonist. I also find it too much of a stretch to insist that just because an individual lived 400 years, that he would have spent time with Shakespeare, Captain Cook, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

One quote stuck with me, though:

“Whenever I see someone reading a book, especially if it is someone I don't expect, I feel civilization has become a little safer.”

Practice for midnight library

Midnight library was an 11 on a scale of 1-10. This seemed like about a 5.5. Research sample of 1.

Wonderful Epic tale

This book requires listening carefully and the lives that intertwined are amazing. I enjoyed it thoroughly