Tom Hanks's First Collection Of Short Stories Revolves Around Typewriters

Tom Hanks might be a movie star, director, environmentalist, honorary member of the United States Army Rangers Hall of Fame, and subway seat hog, but most people know him because of his lifelong passion for typewriters. He collects them, he makes apps based on them, he gives them to strangers, he corresponds with his fans using them, and he's likely the person who is single-handedly keeping typewriter manufacturers in business. And now, he's channeling his enthusiasm for them into his first short story collection, which (duh) revolves around typewriters.

Hank's first collection, Uncommon Type: Some Stories, will be published by Knopf on October 24th. The 17 stories in the book all were inspired by or involve typewriters. Hanks explained in a press release that he started the project back in 2015: "In the two years of working on the stories, I made movies in New York, Berlin, Budapest, and Atlanta, and wrote in all of them. I wrote in hotels during press tours. I wrote on vacation. I wrote on planes, at home, and in the office. When I could actually make a schedule, and keep to it, I wrote in the mornings from 9 to 1."

His publisher gave a preview of some of the material: the stories will focus on subjects such as "an immigrant arriving in New York City after his family and life have been torn apart by his country’s civil war; a man who bowls a perfect game (and then another, and another), becoming ESPN’s newest celebrity; an eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant on the hunt for something larger in America; and the junket life of an actor."

We have a few ideas to pitch Hanks for his followups to this collection:

• Tom Hanks, one of the two most famous actors from Bosom Buddies, has been rescuing lost gloves off the street everywhere he goes, sending out their photos to his followers on social media. In his latest short story collection, Whole Lotta Glove, he imagines the life of those gloves before he found them.
  
• Tom Hanks, director and star of Larry Crowne, has been secretly buying up used DVDs of his filmography from shuttering movie stores for years. In his latest short story collection, The DVD Code, Hanks imagines the harrowing lives of the people who were (presumably) forced to give up their unopened copies of The Ladykillers.
  
• Tom Hanks, the face of A Hologram for the King (yeah, we haven't seen it either), has been photobombing wedding shoots around the world throughout his entire career. In his latest short story collection, It's Me, Tom Hanks, The Wedding Crasher, he imagines what life would have been like if he had starred in the 2005 romantic-comedy Weddings Crashers instead of Vince Vaughn.
  
• Tom Hanks, who was contractually obliged to appear in the movie Inferno, was once given a spine-chilling death-stare by Sarah Jessica Parker at a Knicks game. That moment now serves as the inspiration for his latest short story collection, Forrest Grump, You've Got Mail!, in which Hanks writes several very likable letters to the Sex & The City actress about her ferocious gum chewing.

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