Uncommon Type

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is totally what you would think a collection of short stories from Tom Hanks would be. Fortunately (unfortunately). They are mostly feel-good stories that have hints of darkness, which he doesn't explore, but instead focuses on the optimism. My favorite "The Past is Important to Us" has a bit of sci-fi time travel and it doesn't end so well. Still most of it focuses on the love story set amid the NY World's Fair. There is a typewriter in each story--sometimes in the background, sometimes front and center. There are several involving a group of multi-cultural characters being good friends while some try to date each other, go to the moon, or have mind-blowing success that turns into a curse. They were pretty good too. The recurring character in his "Our Town Today" was excruciatingly bad and almost unreadable ( I skipped them). And he uses words like kablooy, jiffy, without irony and is full of "dad-jokes" (that he also uses without irony). It's nice to read cute little ditties, but don't expect to dig to much or remember much when you're done.

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