'Timothy: or, Notes of an Abject Reptile' — by Verlyn Klinkenborg

The strangest book title of the year is just right for this wonderful little book that has the power to stop time as you read it — or at least, slow it way down, to the pace experienced by Timothy, the tortoise-narrator.

Excerpts:

To humans, in and out are matters of life and death. Not to me. Warm earth awaits just beneath me, the planet's viscous, scalding core. It takes a cool blood to feel that warmth, here at its circumference. The humans' own heat keeps them from sensing it. I drift for months—year's great night—floating on the outer edge of Earth's corona. The only calendar my blood, how it drugs me.
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A better question. How do I escape from that nimble-tongued, fleet-footed race? It helps if they leave the wicket-gate open.

The true secret? Walk through the holes in their attention. Easier at my speed than at any faster rate. At evening, larkers stalk the wheat fields, nets spread. Bits of mirror flash behind them. Larks fly into the glittering—and the nets. Larkers cage them. Off they go to wealthy tables, waiting mouths, in Tunbridge and Brighthelmstone.

So it is with humans. Quickness draws their eye. Entangles their attention. What they notice they call reality. But reality is a fence with many holes, a net with many tears. I walk through them slowly. My slowness is deceptive.
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I do not live in a prison of choices, like humans. I have the one gait, faster or slower. Stand on all my feet or rest on my plastron. Extend my limbs and head and tail. Or not. Mobility limited by human standards. Flight limited by avian standards. All the suppleness necessary to a tortoise. Balance perfect.
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What would I do with those human paces and postures? Those abrupt gestures? Useless in a solitary creature. I look at those mobile faces and see a desperate urge for company. I look at that upright posture and see only sore necks and punishing feet.
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He picks me up one day in Ringmer. Idle question on his face. Feels my tail and feet and as much of my neck as I allow. Concludes that I have no perceptible pulse. As if I would keep my pulse where a human could touch it. What would be the point of all this armor then?

He forgets how discomfiting the incandescence of mammals feels to a reptile. Their abruptness. The velocity of their existence. To live such long lives at such terrible speed. And to get no further than if they had lived more slowly.
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Humans believe that the parish of Earth exists solely for their use. Fabric of cottages, roofs, sheds, and shops. Shelter of brew-houses, malt-houses, ash-houses, granaries, kilns. Hand-work in brick and food. Slate, stone, thatch. Greensand, blue rag, wattle. Walks and alleys and side-yards through this village. The comfort of the human establishment. Chambers and hearths as welcoming as a human face. Houses looking out on street and Hanger with great staring human eyes.

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Bonus: At the end of the book is a Glossary of approximately 150 words used in the book, which takes place during the 18th century.