Uncommon Type: Some Stories

Review below is based on first eight stories (updates when -- and if -- I've read the rest).I wanted to like this book, I really did. Tom Hanks, the. I figured owning a first edition hardback of his first ever book, despite it not being signed, would be a cool thing. I'm not looking to sell it for a profit since every edition is first at the moment but you, I hope, understand the gist. Imagine my surprise then when I opened it, after the postman delivered it, and found nothing but badly written content with even worse formatting. I really don't understand what everyone is reading because I must have got the first draft copy, it's that bad. I can't help but think the publisher has seen the author's name and thought of the money upon release. I'd like to say Tom got published for his ability to write but from what I've read so far I really can't believe that.So, anyway, I dislike it, but why? Let me take you through the first eight stories -- the notes I made while reading them -- and tell you what I thought:1 - Three exhausting weeksPage 15 (bottom) - "In her bed that night, Anna was going through her pre-sleep iPad scroll when I got a text from Steve wong."Page 16 -SWong: U boffing A???I pinched out my reply.Moonwalker7: Your bizniz?SWong: Yes/no?Moonwalker7: <smiley face>SWong: U Nsane??????Moonwalker7: <a bunch of useless vectors that mean nothing>I'll stop there.Firstly what does that even mean? Secondly how much of a mockery is it to short story writers and their collections that such untranslatable garbage is being published. I don't mind people that want to stretch the boundaries and write stories from a new angle -- short stories can be fun and different -- but what even is the above? I can't take it seriously.Beside that we've already encountered a problem that features throughout the book: several fonts used on page after page that don't go with one another. Already you've not only lost me but also annoyed me.Also features a character called MDash -- yes that's his name. This "MDash" features throughout the book in various stories. One MDash however is not the same as the other and suddenly once you've advanced beyond this first story you're encountering an entirely different person. In summary: the same name is used in various stories to describe different characters. It's not only lazy but confusing. Why would you introduce a reader to a person and then change his characteristics? Did you even plan you're characters? It's like like renaming Ron Weasley with Harry Potter simply because they're both male, it just -- and never will - doesn't work.2 - 1953Is more readable but the story is disjointed. About halfway it joins WW2 and then ends. I couldn't make out the connection between the first and second part of this story. I was, perhaps, distracted by the rather poor introduction -- of which by the way the first story is suicide when you consider that a buyers choice could be made on reading the first few lines of the first story.I liked the writing about war not only because it is a personal interest but because it is well written. Tom Hanks has featured in war films and so perhaps my advice would be to focus on what you know. I was engaged with the page, for once.3 - A junket in the city of lightVariations in fonts that don't go together -- I can't understand what the book designing team was smoking when they put this together. Issues with the grammatical editing. Words that have emphasis are either italic or underlined -- choose one and stick with it. In one story we've got underlining and in another we've got italics (this ones underlined). It's the basics of reading any grammar book before you sit at your desk and start typing away for the first time.Features (page 63) a long letter that's not only in a horrible font but also all in italic, all! Features several long time tables of things I didn't even read. It's like a combination of wasting page space to increase the page count and make it look like a better volume than it is.Introduction is poor and, to me, reads like someone who's writing a first draft attempting to figure out what direction to take. Story reads like the story he wants to write -- that was before I lost interest."I've spent more time picking the book up and putting it down than I have reading it so far," I wrote in the word review document while note taking.Gave up and didn't read the last two pages, frustrated.4 - Our town todayPointless. Short. Didn't understand point of it.5 - Welcome to marsFirst story I read from start to finish uninterrupted -- putting the book down in disgust -- and was well written and well edited. Ending, however, is slightly confusing.Overall scope is: son and farther go to a beach, Father is in a car with a woman, Son resides by van injured, Father comes back and they go to hospital never to return to the beach again. But why the cliffhanger? Who was the woman? Why is this only half written? What did I miss?6 - a month on greene streetWell written. One smooth font. Good story, reasonable open ending.7 - Alan bean plus fourBad grammar, again, makes it unreadable. MDash features again, but why? (Who have you really met in life called MDash -- what's so hard about giving someone a real name?)8 - Our town todayA newspaper report (like story No. 5) written in slim columns and brief pieces.Provides an insight into New York. More of a news report than a story.I don't understand the angle of No. 5 and 8. Is Tom trying to put a new creative angle on short story writing or is this opinion shared? I can't make out what these types of stories are all about.And that, so far, is about all I've read (more if I read the rest).Content aside.Book has nice end-papers. Paper quality feels nice. Good weight overall. Nice bookmark string attached to the book. Pictures of the typewriters are a nice feature but not something I care for -- each to their own.I should add I'm not alone in not liking this book: just look amazon US and there's plenty of negative reviews (I write this because I realise I'm the thorn amongst the roses as it stands).

All the way through I was hearing Tom Hanks voice reading this to me, I loved loved loved this book.

Tom Hanks collects typewriters. Here, in his fiction debut, he uses them as a linking thread in his short stories; occasionally, the device feels a little shoe-horned in but most of the time it works very well. Hanks can probably afford a castle to house his vast collection of typewriters yet to me it’s clear that the financial rewards of his success have not lifted his feet from the ground by even an inch. Many of the stories are about ordinary people in ordinary situations doing ordinary everyday things. And even in the more ‘out there’ stories, the emotions of his characters are recognisably real. Hanks’s genuine warmth, empathy and down-to-earth decency shine through – these surely are the very qualities that contribute so much to his acting ability.At first, it’s hard to shake off Hanks’s distinctive voice. But it’s not long before the author’s grasp of character takes over and one finds oneself immersed, tuning out Tom in favour of the voice in the story: A divorcee who moves to a quiet neighbourhood and fears she will be pestered by the guy next door. The ten-year old boy who goes to visit his estranged mother for a special birthday treat. The columnist of a local paper who feels compelled to big up his small town (one gets the feeling that in another life, Hanks might have enjoyed being a journo). There are sci-fi stories too, like a time-travel take on Cinder(f)ella which is very well-told even though the outcome is predictable.In fact, Hanks doesn’t once go for the smartypants, sting-in-the-tale short story payoff and, in my view, this is A Good Thing. The last story ‘Steve Wong Is Perfect’ was my favourite: a strike! All in all, a convincing and enjoyable debut – if a little vanilla. Give it a shot.

I came across this book completely by accident as it is mentioned by Ann Patchett in her new book of essays, "These Precious Days". Of course, I was well aware of Hanks as an actor, director and producer in the movie industry, but I had no idea that he also writes. And, how well he writes! Very much in the tradition of the classic American short-story, Hanks is an absolute master of the short narrative: his characters are vividly drawn and provide much gentle laughter and a few tears. So beautifully observed.This is not "celebrity" writing, and although I think some of the stories have elements of auto-biography, these stories are not memoirs.If you enjoy the short-story genre, I am certain that this book will delight you - and if you read these stories without knowing the name of the author, you would never guess that he is one of our most popular and successful movie stars.

This collection of short stories are, as others have said, “aggressively bland”. Not badly written, not brilliantly written, but they are evocative of their times. I enjoyed them in the same way I enjoy cooking a new recipe; it’s a bit of an investment and sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not.

I read this book on holiday years ago .. I found it in a hotel lobby library. I was surprised to see who the author was and that did make me wonder if it was going to be a 'find' or awful. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and still remember some of the stories. I do hope he writes another one [maybe he has]. I've passed the book on to others who also felt it was a good read.

Having read somewhere that Tom Hanks always uses a typewriter rather than, say, Word on a computer and that he had written some fiction, I wanted to know if he was any good at it. The answer is a resoinding "YES". With the theme of a typewriter running through all of these short stories, he mastered the task well - even if some of them were a bit laboured at times. He has an excellent imagination to come up with the breadth of stories in this book and it was good to see some characters run in several of them. At our Book Club, this scored an average of 76% and 4*. Thoroughly recommended.