This book was thoroughly okay. It was written very well and the concept was fun. But the story line was just a little flat. I felt like it was going to go somewhere and then just never quite did for me. Still a good and quick read though. ( )

I first encountered Matt Haig in The Midnight Library which proved to be an interesting premise where a character visited a library between life and death so she could "take out" so to speak a different version of her life, explore the road not taken.
This earlier novel of his also has a unique premise. The main character Tom Hazard is revealed to have lived for over four hundred years. Due to a genetic condition he ages on a scale of about 1 to every 15 years. Haig takes this opportunity to place the narrator in London during Shakespearean days, later sailing with Captain Cook to the Pacific Islands, then in Paris, chatting with F Scott and Zelda and finally teaching history to enlighten phone addicted teenagers. -( I mean who better to teach high school history)- The various historical adventures make for fun reading and ample opportunities for philosophical meandering, but the plot of the novel makes clear that this is not a fun life for the man whose mother was drowned for being a witch since her son did not age. He once had the love of his life and a child, but his condition always made it too dangerous for the ones he loved. So the solution is to never love. This is what he learns from a supposedly wise leader of a group called the albatross society who are the people with this condition who have to change life every eight years in order to escape capture from those who would want to harness this condition for scientific research. So in the current time, when faced with a possible new love, he has to wrestle with the beliefs of the albatross society or with his heart.

Fun read but I wouldn't say a big recommendation to others. In reading a bit about the author I would be interested in an earlier book of his called The Humans. Haig is very open about his struggles with mental health and his book Reasons to Stay Alive may also be of interest.
Lines
Forever, Emily Dickinson said, is composed of nows. But how do you inhabit the now you are in? How do you stop the ghosts of all the other nows from getting in? How, in short, do you live?

The first technology to lead to fake news wasn’t the internet, it was the printing press. Books solidified the superstition. Almost everybody believed in witches.

Do you know the way you can tell if a tightrope walker is any good?’ ‘How?’ ‘They’re still alive.’

‘You are not the only one with sorrows in this world. Don’t hoard them like they are precious. There is always plenty of them to go around.’

The great thing about being in your four hundreds is that you can get the measure of someone pretty quickly.

The lesson of history is that ignorance and superstition are things that can rise up, inside almost anyone, at any moment. And what starts as a doubt in a mind can swiftly become an act in the world.

as if Montaigne himself was also in the room. ‘“He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ( )

What a lovely book. The plot moves right along, carrying you through time and space with equal abandon. Surprisingly, it is a coming of age story, with a centuries old protagonist . Particularly enjoyed the character of Omai ( )

I'm not quite sure what all the hype is about, but I enjoyed reading it. It's an easy read that does a good thing by making you stop and think every now and then. ( )

At times laugh out loud funny, this book deals with philosophical ideas relating to death and aging. Specifically, it explores the idea that love transcends time. "People you love never die." Having lived a life where I lost people I loved, I can only say that this conclusion is pretty much true. The dead do live on - if nothing more than in the minds of the people who loved them. Seth (Jane Roberts) says that there is no time, no place - this book supports that theory. More than anything though, it is a good story that I hated to end. If it's still in the works, I look forward to the film. ( )