Uncommon Type

Tom Hanks Press Reviews

Mr. Hanks turns out to be as authentically genuine a Writer with as capital a W as ever touched a typewriter key. The stories in Uncommon Type 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, engaging and humane as the man himself. All with that extra quality of keenly observant and sympathetic intelligence that has always set Tom Hanks apart. I blink, bubble and boggle in amazed admiration. -- Stephen Fry

Reading Tom Hanks's Uncommon Type is like finding out that Alice Munro is also the greatest actress of our time. -- Ann Patchett

It turns out that Tom Hanks is also a wise and hilarious writer with an endlessly surprising mind. Damn it. -- Steve Martin

The central quality to Tom's writing is a kind of poignant playfulness. It's exactly what you hope from him, except you wish he was sitting in your home, reading it aloud to you, one story at a time. -- Mindy Kaling

Uncommon Type is funny, wise, gloriously inventive and humane. Tom Hanks sees inside people - a wary divorcee, a billionaire trading desire for disaster, a boy witnessing his father's infidelity, a motley crew shooting for the moon - with such acute empathy and good humour we'd follow him anywhere. The cumulative effect is of a world I didn't want to leave. -- Anna Funder

Wait - Tom Hanks can write, too? Funny, moving, deftly surprising stories? That's just swell. Maybe there's no crying in baseball, pal, but it's perfectly acceptable in the book business. That's how we drown envy. -- Carl Hiaasen

Hanks can write the hell out of typing, and his dialogue is excellent, too...While these stories have the all-American sweetness, humour, and heart we associate with his screen roles, Hanks writes like a writer, not a movie star.    Kirkus