Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Tom Hanks Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks Biography

Tom Hanks has won Academy Awards for best actor for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. He has starred in, among many other films, Big, Sleepless in Seattle, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, Cast Away, Catch Me If You Can, Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies, Sully, Toy Story, The Post, and It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. He is also the author of a best-selling collection of stories, Uncommon Type.

R. Sikoryak (illustrator of The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece) is a cartoonist and an author based in New York City. His illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.



This bio was last updated on 05/01/2023. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

A conversation with Tom Hanks, author of Uncommon Type

Typewriters are in each of your stories. When did you get your ?rst?

In the summer of 1978 I traded in my worthless 1970s typewriter for a Hermes 2000 made in the 1950s. I adapted my experience into the story "These Are the Meditations of My Heart."

What, for you, is the difference between sitting at a typewriter to write and sitting at a computer to write?

A typewriter is for musing. And letters. A computer is for work. And documents.

When did you first start writing?

I've been writing on the record, meaning for pay, attaching my name to a project, and getting a wealth of criticism around the office, since the screenplay for That Thing You Do! in 1995.

What is one book you wish you had written? Why?

Manchester's The Glory and the Dream, as he captured the spine of our modern history from the Bonus March to Vietnam in all its blemishes, hubris, and humanity.

Is there a line in your own book that you're most proud of having written?

I'm very proud of the idiocy and authenticity of this section from "A Junket in the City of Light":
14:50 – 15:00 – Radio interview with TSR-1
15:05 – 15:15 – Radio interview with RTF-3
15:20 – 15:30 – Radio interview with FRT-2

How...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Tom Hanks at BookBrowse
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece jacket Uncommon Type jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Tom Hanks but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Molly Antopol

    Molly Antopol

    Molly Antopol teaches writing at Stanford University, where she was a recent Wallace Stegner Fellow. A recipient of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 award, she holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives in ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Uncommon Type

    Try:
    The UnAmericans
    by Molly Antopol

  • Fredrik Backman

    Fredrik Backman

    Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called OveMy Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's SorryBritt-Marie Was HereBeartownUs Against You, and&#... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Uncommon Type

    Try:
    A Man Called Ove
    by Fredrik Backman

We recommend 6 similar authors

View all 6 Read-Alikes

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

If every country had to write a book about elephants...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.