I was a little dubious about this, but I really enjoyed it. This is a series of 17 short stories with a common theme- the presence of a typewriter- winding through them.

Hanks tackles many parts of the American experience- migrants and naturalisation, the dreamy haze of New York, the effort to attain the American Dream, the experience of war and the coping mechanisms of its aftermath, even the inspiration of space as the ultimate adventure and time travel as the ultimate rich man's privilege. The breadth of topics covered mean that each story is a little different, but the common threads and the solid voice of Hanks as a narrator means they all feel familiar and friendly, if a little folksy.

There are some issues- Hanks demonstrates the age old problem of not quite being able to write realistic women, with his characters either defined by their physicality or physical traits, where the nuances and feelings of his male characters are much more subtle in their definitions. The experiences of the male characters also seem richer, deeper and more fulfilled by comparison. But this criticism aside, the stories occupy an old time, all-American sense of wholesome positivity, which makes this a very pleasant read.

'Uncommon Type' was very readable, the stories were varried as far as the subject, characters and periods were concerned.

Unfortunately, the writing was a bit too simple and it felt a bit stale at times.

I'm not sorry I read it, although it wasn't riveting or particularly memorable.

I usually give a despairing sigh when celebs bring books out. Just a way of extracting more cash from the fans, I think. Not so here, I have to say. With Uncommon Type, a compilation of short stories, Tom Hanks proves he can actually string sentences together. And paragraphs. Indeed, whole slices of life spring from his pen, and very good they are, too. I was prepared to maybe read a few, skip a few, pick a few faults, but I found that as soon as I finished one I happily started on another. As far as faults go, there was one instance of head-hopping that caught my attention but didn't seem at all problematic.

Hanks gives us traditional tales alongside quirky futuristic fantasies, stories of the past as well as modern instances, comedy as well as serious topics, and he is never dull. As might be expected, there are many stories told from the point of view of boys, youths and men. There are, however, stories with female protagonists too, and though they may not pass the Bechdel Test, they are not solely a man’s-eye view.

The common theme is typewriters. Most stories include a reference to one. Sometimes the typewriters are integral to the story, sometimes they are simply there in the background. Despite the prevalence of elderly writing machines, these stories are diverse in style and structure. Most are good humoured and made me smile throughout and sometimes even laugh. Others have the emotional pull that leads the reader to contemplation.

I found myself warming to the writer as I read, for the sense of a very human and caring intelligence is always present. It is this sense of someone behind it all that gives the collection coherence, I think. Though the stories are varied in tone and characterisation, there is also a sense of them being part of a larger whole. I found them all entertaining and enjoyable.

I loved this collection of stories. The tales cater to different tastes and cover different styles, some long, some very short across different genres. Each story features a typewriter in some form or another. I didn’t realise this until I’d listen to at least have the stories. I thought this was a nice touch.

Several stories including Three Exhausting Weeks and Alan Bean Plus Four feature the same characters. The stories are stand-alone and just have the same characters. These were my favourite stories in the whole collection.

I also liked the three stories featuring the title Our Town Today With Hank Fiset which were a lot of fun to read and listen to.

Some may be dubious of an actor turning his hand to creative writing but Uncommon Type: Some Stories is highly entertaining.

This is one of the best collections of short stories around. They are well written with a jaunty,happy but skilful style. The common theme is an obsession with old typewriters which keep popping up! Some are just funny, others wistful,several emotional. The collection shows an amazing range of human understanding. This collection deserves to become a classic of short story writing.

An interesting read, with the focus being on 'old-fashioned' typewriters always making a show in each of his stories. All the stories are different, with a few characters popping up throughout - a nice read if you don't want to read a huge book.

I like Tom Hanks as an actor and he comes across as very likeable. I really wanted to like this collection of short stories. I quite enjoyed the book although it's not a genre I normally read. The writing is efficient but occasionally I felt as if I was reading a school essay.

As I read. Tom's voice was coming across quite strongly.

You couldn't call it an exciting read, but I don't think it was ever meant to be that. It's more a gentle read that meanders along at a fairly slow pace.

I did have some favourites although there were a couple I found less enthralling which could possibly be cut from the collection. Some were simply bonkers but fun. Overall however it's charming collection that you can just dip into when you have some spare time. It would also make quite a nice Christmas or birthday gift for someone.

Not for me
I was disappointed because I really wanted to like this book, as Tom is one of my favourite actors and I was excited about having the opportunity to review it. What I got was a collection of short stories, with an old fashioned feel about them. Unfortunately they didn’t hold my interest and I struggled to finish the book.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley. I was not compensated for my review, and I was not required to write a positive review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

Tom Hanks turns out to be as authentically genuine a writer as can be. The stories in this book range from the hilarious to the deeply touching.

They move in period, location, and manner, but all demonstrate a joy in writing, a pleasure in communicating an intensely American sense of atmosphere, friendship, life and family that is every bit as smart and engaging as the man himself.

While the stories are witty, it is more so because of the man himself. They may not be Pulitzer material, but it truly is a pleasure to read his book while thinking about this imaginative man.

When actors or celebrities decide that it's their calling to put out a book, a fair portion of scepticism is almost always appropriate. When it's <i>Tom Hanks</i> publishing his debut though, my doubts get mixed with something close to fear, because if I know one thing for sure, it's that I really want to like this.

I received a copy through <i>NetGalley</i> and decided to dive straight into it without any knowledge of what this book was actually about. Turned out that in <i>Uncommon Type</i>, Tom Hanks presents us seventeen short stories which are all very different in nature. We meet a World War II veteran who tries to cope with his past, the struggles of a sexual affair between friends and a teenager who stumbles upon his father's secrets.

One thing that they all have in common is that they feature a reference to a typewriter. Sometimes subtly, sometimes the old-fashioned object plays a central role. Tom Hanks apparently has an own obsession with typewriters as such - it's not just an implement after all, but there is a tactile and emotional connection between the object and the user. It's a beautiful homage.

I have mixed feelings about this collection though. The writing was plain but appropriate for the mostly simple stories. The characters were all relatable and very <i>normal</i>, but all crafted with a sympathetic mind. I enjoyed the fact that some characters made several appearances, which created a nice flow to the book itself, while many of the stories were lovely to read, but I didn't feel like I gained anything from them, as they often didn't go anywhere. My favourite was probably <b>"Who’s Who?"</b>, a story set in 1978, which was about Sue from Arizona, who is an aspiring actress trying to make it in New York.

Overall, <i>Uncommon Type</i> is a promising debut. It proves that Tom Hanks has both ideas and skill, and yet I feel like there was a bit more shaping and crafting needed to create something that is memorable and that actually stays with you as a reader after putting the book back on the shelf.

As ever with collections of short stories there are some which didn't appeal to me but the majority were fantastic and Ioved Hanks' clever mix of sadness and humour in so many of the stories. My favourite was definitely the one featuring the World's Fair and I also liked spotting the type writer in each story. Not sure it will make my top books of the year but it isn't far off.

When reading this book I was pleased to realise that I was hearing the voice of Tom Hanks in my head. That is high praise, because at times even as I stumbled over the archaic exclamations of 'golly' or 'gee' etc, I did very much feel like I was listening to him speak in that recognisable down home folksy way of his. Only veteran Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks would have been able to pitch a book about such a niche hobby (in this case vintage typewriters) to any publishing house, and in short story form no less. The stories themselves are mostly nostalgic, little slices of Americana describing a bygone age. They are on the whole sweet but unremarkable- wholesome but seemingly without any of the wit and humour that makes the author himself so beloved. While I wouldn't have expected anything particularly gritty I feel that this book plays a little too close to type. It is inoffensive, pleasant, and at the end of the day, utterly forgettable.

Surprised to find Tom Hanks had written this book, I so wanted to like it. Sadly, it didn't do much for me. As I read each story, engaging with the characters and storyline, they suddenly stopped. And I found myself asking, where's the rest? Was this book edited? A collection of chatty, easy to read stories that are almost there. A good try for a debut author.

Short stories are very difficult beasts and in every collection there are the good, the bad, and the uglies. What saves the day is the connecting tissue, the glue that binds them together. Tom Hanks, super star as he is, has this covered: it’s the clancking typerwriter sound in the background. A ‘device’ like this is hard not to appeal to every bookworm’s heart.

Most of the stories carry a strong autobiographical element or at least are closely related to the author’s public persona and career. This creates a very interesting dynamic. There are a few stories related to space exploration – everyone remembers Tom Hanks’ iconic Apollo 13 performance; there are WWII stories – Tom Hanks has actually been instrumental in the opening of the WWII museum in New Orleans; there is a story written in the form of a screenplay; another one is about the non-glamorous lifestyle of a budding young actor; a story about Eastern-European immigrants in New York – Tom Hanks visits the area regularly as he spends his summer holidays quite often in Greece; and one of my favourites: a sci-fi rom-com story that could easily be turned into another “Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan” film. And most importantly, typewriters are everywhere – a lifelong obsession of Tom Hanks.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Hanks’ debut collection. But I think emphasis needs to be given to the ‘debut’ aspect. Although there are many brilliant moments and Hanks experimented quite successfully with some of his material, there is still something amateurish in his approach. The endings, for example, definitely needed more work. Beginnings and endings are fundamental in a short story because the writer doesn’t have enough space to move around. Beginnings need to be engaging and get us fast into the story, whereas endings need to let the story slowly burn away. The endings of most of the stories felt too much rushed for my liking.

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me, and I couldn’t finish it. 😔

I am not usually one for short stories but was intrigued to see whether Tom Hanks could write as well as he acted! This book is a collection of 17 short stories with a link throughout of typewriters. (apparently Tom collects these!) Typewriters aren't the focus of the stories they just appear as a reoccurring link . The stories range from Space travel, surfing and first steps to acting to name a few ! the writing styles are different in each - examples are one is written as a play ( I found this one confusing to read and one as if it was a newspaper report . I think it is a book that you can dip in and out of - Some of them I wanted them to continue to see what happened as they appeared to end suddenly , My 2 favourites were 'Go See Costas' about a man starting a new life in America where he can't speak the language and his struggles to start a new life. The other one I enjoyed was 'The past is important to us' a story about time travel - You can pay to travel back in time but only to a certain date and this is one mans account of his trips. Overall a really lovely book that I enjoyed - perfect Christmas present for someone that likes reading.

I'm a huge fan of Tom Hank's films and when I heard he was releasing a book I was looking forward to reading his own creations. Unfortunately, this collection didn't live up to my expectations. While I can see there were some great ideas in the collection, I didn't feel a connection to the stories or the characters, it was almost too late in each story for me to care. I also felt that these weren't put in the best order, they were all meant to be linked by a typewriter but this is something that didn't really show throughout the stories. I wish I could have liked it more!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Not bad, but not the best short stories I've read. Might have been published because of who he is?.

I had such high hopes for this book. I am a huge fan of Tom Hanks and don't think he has ever had a bad film having enjoyed them all. I envisioned myself falling in love with the book as much as I did his films. Sadly this was not to be.

Uncommon Type is a book made up of short stories that all seem to surround a type writer. For me the stories just felt a bit like someones ramblings. Like the author had an idea and had quickly jotted it down. I hoped with each short that one of them would grab me but it just didn't happen.

I'm sure others may enjoy this one but sadly for me it didn't hit the spot. Maybe some of my own doing for having such high expectations.

I love short stories and cannot understand why the publishing industry don't have the same amount of faith in them. It doesn't help that there is apparently not much of a purchasing public out there for short story collections, but it is an art form that should be nurtured, because there are plenty of fans like me out there. For this reason I was excited to come across Tom Hanks' short story collection. I am not big on reading celebrity books, but my curiosity for this collection was piqued and I was lucky to get a copy off Netgalley.

I won't break down my thoughts of each story, plenty of people have already done that. Hanks has produced an easy read reflective of his understanding of the world. The entire book is imbued with a rose-tinted positivity that seems at odds with the times we will live in. It isn't that happy endings should be a thing of the past, but that, when 16 out of 17 stories end with a convenient happy ending, the contrivance supersedes the substance.

Hanks' writing comes alive when he is writing about the film industry, as in the story about the film stars and their crazy schedules. There is a level of detail in there that belies the author's own feelings about the promotional side of film-making. This kind of attention is not paid to the majority of the other stories, though Hanks does seem to know a fair bit about surfing and typewriters apparently.

Typewriters are the common theme running through the entire book; many a story is an ode to the lost art of writing on these machines. While the theme ties the stories together, I would have preferred more oblique references to the theme than entire stories revolving around it - at some point it begins to feel the theme is dictating the substance of the story rather than the other way around.

While the book is a pleasant read throughout, what troubled me was Hanks' inability to write believable, or relatable, female characters. I wanted to relegate all biases I had absorbed from review headlines to the back seat when I finally received my copy of the book, but the author does himself no favours by opening the book with a story about a Manic Pixie Dream Girl who torments her partner by trying to change everything about him. I found the entire story tedious because it was, and could only have been, written by a man; in fact, you could hear Hanks' voice clearly in the narrative, which made me wonder how much was fiction and how much was perceived reality.

Subsequent stories are unable to create vivid personalities for the women characters, though their physical attributes are almost always highlighted. Particularly egregious is the story 'Stay With Us', inexplicably written in screenplay form, where the central doddering male protagonist has a super attractive, slim, high-heeled female assistant. I kept expecting the bubble to pop and for it all to turn out to be a script read by incredulous actors/directors/someone, but the penny did not drop and that was the story.

There is a paucity of diverse characters in this book as well, which baffles me but shouldn't. The first story (and its two sequels) include new American citizens of Asian and African origins, but they are not central to the stories - nor do we get a feeling of their homelands or their migrant experience living in a new country. The only story that touches on the migrant experience is 'Go See Costas', but that too doesn't delve too deep into the subject. That leaves the majority of the stories with quintessential characters of no particular ethnicity. Perhaps I ask too much of writers to paint a realistic picture of the diverse world (or town) we live in, but admittedly even if we are surrounded by other races and nationalities, on average most people gravitate to their own kind. Books are merely reflective of this behaviour.

For a quick and pleasant read, this book is just what the doctor ordered. It is an enjoyable, if unmemorable experience, but an accomplished one all the same.