Gavin Edwards, The World According to Tom Hanks

Like everyone else in the world, I'm a fan of Tom Hanks. Still, I didn't expect much when I downloaded a sample of Gavin Edwards's celebrity bio, The World According to Tom Hanks. I definitely didn't expect to wind up buying and reading the whole thing.

But it's well written and interesting, and somehow it just goes down very easy, even at more than 350 pages.

The book is divided into three parts: a straightforward biography; a look at Hanks through the prism of his "ten commandments" (e.g., "Excel at your life's work"), which I believe are precepts attributed to Hanks by the author rather than a list Hanks came up with himself; and what I assume is an exhaustive list, with discussion, of Tom Hanks's films.

Edwards's account is, not surprisingly, overwhelmingly positive, but he does have some critical things to say about some of the movies—and he can also land a nice turn of phrase from time to time:

"Returning to the role of [Robert] Langdon, Hanks has a bit more urgency in his performance and a bit less bouffant in his hairdo. To say the character is paper-thin does a disservice to paper—however, it is nice to see a movie hero who takes murder and mayhem in stride, but gets really excited when he enters a library."

Edwards did not interview Hanks for the book, but reportedly had his blessing in writing it. He certainly interviewed a lot of people around Hanks as well as mining televised interviews for material. The result is a very readable and informative narrative.