Uncommon Type

I loved this book. If you follow me on goodreads.com, you might have seen that I only gave it 4 stars. Why? If I loved this book so much? I loved it because it made me think so much of my dad. Whenever I hear the clack of a typewriter, which you rarely hear these days, I think of my dad. That was the lullaby that put me to sleep most nights of my childhood. My dad, in his study above my bedroom, typing ... something... well into the night. After my dad died, my brother and I knew that one of us was going to have to keep at least one of his typewriters. I think my brother took the IBM Selectric. Ah, the IBM Selectric. Jill, do you remember all the fun we had on that thing?

Back to Uncommon Type. I didn't even realize until I was nearly finished with this collection of stories by actor Tom Hanks where the title Uncommon Type came from. Not every story involved a typewriter. In fact, many did not. But ah... those typewriters.

Uncommon Type has 17 short stories. There are a few that involve 4 friends. The narrator, Steve Wong, MDash and Anna. There are a few that are "newspaper articles" written by Hank Fiset. The rest are kind of random and deal with things like civil war and being a refugee (I think I need to read up a little on the conflict between Greece and Bulgaria - when was that?), father/son surfing, divorce, Time Travel. Pretty random stuff. What's especially strange is that while each story wouldn't end happily ever after, once into the swing of the book, you realize that nothing bad is ever really going to happen.

Because it's a collection of short stories and because of the community book club's experience discussing Neither Snow nor Rain, I wrote at least a one sentence summarizing each and ever story. Here's hoping this will help in the discussion.

Reading this immediately after Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, which was more a collection of short stories than an actual novel, I was hoping for something that I could really sink my teeth into. A novel. A saga. I picked up Uncommon Type rather reluctantly, especially since a fellow book club member said she really didn't like it. And while now I'm really craving something with a little meat that I can dig my brain into, I loved Uncommon Type and hope others do as well.