ICYMI: Tom Hanks just dropped his debut book (plus a celebrity reading round-up)
Everyone’s favorite hypothetical dad and two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks has a book out. And sure, anyone with a minimum degree of celebrity status and social media following seems able to wrangle a book deal nowadays, but Hanks’ is a work of fiction. C’mon, that’s pretty impressive.
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Uncommon Type features 17 short stories, from that of an Eastern European immigrant trying to build a new life in New York City to a man who has the ability to travel back in time and visit the 1939 World’s Fair exhibit, and each one features a different antique manual typewriter (hence the book title). And much like the actor’s lovable if lately out-of-touch persona, Hank’s writing has been described by NPR as “a gentler, sweeter kind of storytelling” “[in] a world where…much fiction tends toward the dystopic, post-apocalyptic, dark, or edgy.”
Someone also has a book out: Jessica Jones star Krysten Ritter.
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The psychological thriller Bonfire follows Abby Williams, an environmental lawyer who has returned to her hometown for the first time in 10 years to investigate into a local company suspected of dumping chemicals. As she works on the case, Abby gets drawn back into her own past, when the most popular girl in her high school disappeared. Ritter’s debut novel will be released on November 7, but it already got the approval and endorsement of her Jessica Jones co-star—also more famously known as Trinity from The Matrix—Carrie Anne Moss.
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Comedian Ben Schwartz’s book with television writer Laura Moses is more in the how-to vein of typical celebrity-penned tomes, but Things You Should Already Know, You Fucking Idiot sounds a lot more fun than, say, Goop Clean Beauty (though maybe just as sanctimonious). It’s meant to be an illustrated guide to dating for millennials.
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In case Schwartz’s name elicits a “Who?” from you, he played Jean-Ralphio in Parks and Recreation and was the voice of Star Wars’ BB-8.
As for your favorite celebrity bookworms, here are their current recommended reads:
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Alice Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic is the prequel to her bestselling book Practical Magic, on which the 1998 movie starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman was based.
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Actress Jenny Slate’s choice couldn’t be timelier, with so many women now speaking up about sexual harassment and abuse. Rebecca Solnit’s latest book aims to answer The Mother of All Questions: “Who has been unheard?”
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Published in 2008, Adam Braver’s Nov. 22, 1963 : A Novel chronicles the day when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and explores how the stories and memories from that day have mythologized the historic event.
