How to Stop Time by Matt Haig will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 2 October.
We have an exclusive extract for you to read.
How to Stop Time
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.
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 and tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom mustn’t do is fall in love.
Selection panel review
The book was selected with the help of a panel of librarians from across the UK.
The panel loved How to Stop Time – here is a review from one of our readers:
“This is an epic tale – spanning 400 years of history in Paris, London, Tahiti, USA and Australia – following the life of Tom Hazard who, even though he looks 41, was actually born in 1581. He is one of a small group who have a rare condition that means they age one year for every 15 years they live. When he is persuaded to join the Albatross Society, a group which offers support to others with the same condition, he doesn’t realise that if he can’t persuade someone to join the group, then the only alternative is for them to be killed, so that the truth is never made public. Tom’s life has been spent moving from one place to another every 8 years, to avoid persecution and suspicion. I really enjoyed this. Tom’s only reason for living is the hope that he may one day find his daughter Marion – who is also an Alba. But the Society may know more about her whereabouts than they let on – in order to control him. Loved Tom’s role as a history teacher to a year 12 class, trying not to give away too much about whom he may have known throughout history. Great ending too. Hopeful!”
About the author
Matt Haig is an internationally acclaimed writer of adult and children’s novels, screenplays, non-fiction and journalism. His work has been translated into 30 languages. Reasons to Stay Alive has spent 45 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller list since publication in 2015, while his novel The Humans has sold over 200,000 copies and was chosen as a World Book Night title in 2015. The Radleys won The TV Book Club ‘book of the series’.
As a writer for children and young adults Haig has won the Blue Peter Book Award, the Smarties Book Prize and been shortlisted three times for the Carnegie Medal. His children’s books include A Boy Called Christmas and The Girl Who Saved Christmas, as well as Father Christmas and Me, which will publish in October 2017.
Get involved
Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 2 October to hear a live interview with Matt.
Have you read How to Stop Time or any of Matt’s other books? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter using #HowToStopTime, or follow author Matt Haig.
You can also see what other readers thought or add the book to your group’s reading list.
Want to find out more? Take a look at the Radio 2 Book Club Twitter feed or find out more on the Radio 2 Book Club website.
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