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. 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 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.
Themes & atmosphere
Also by Matt Haig
All works by Matt Haig →
What you might want to know about How to Stop Time
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Tom Hazard looks forty and is over four hundred years old. He moves cities every eight years to avoid notice and works as a London history teacher. He is supposed to never fall in love. He is failing at that.
Yes. A film adaptation has been in development with Benedict Cumberbatch attached. As of 2025, the project remains in development with no confirmed release date.
No. Matt Haig's prose is direct and accessible. The novel is around 320 pages and is widely recommended as a gateway to literary speculative fiction. Most readers finish it quickly.
How to Stop Time was written by Matt Haig, published in 2017 by Viking.
How to Stop Time is 336 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, How to Stop Time takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
How to Stop Time is a standalone novel by Matt Haig, not part of a series.
How to Stop Time is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.