Two-time oscar winning actor Tom Hanks has turned writer with a new collection of short stories titled, “Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks”.
“Susan Sandon, Managing Director of Cornerstone and Jason Arthur, Publisher of William Heinemann have acquired UK and Commonwealth Rights in ‘Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks’. The deal was struck with Suzanne Smith at Knopf, Penguin Random House in New York.
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“The collection of seventeen wonderful short stories show that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor,” publishers Penguin Random House, UK said in a statement.
The book that will be published in October this year both in hardcover and as an ebook, features seventeen stories that have a typewriter in common, owing to Hanks’ fascination with the writing instrument.
“Hanks is an avid collector of vintage typewriters and owns over one hundred of them,” publishers said.
The stories talk about a varied range of subjects – while one shows an immigrant arriving in New York City after his family and life have been torn apart by his country’s civil war, another talks about a man who bowls a perfect game to become ESPN’s newest celebrity.
“‘Uncommon Type’ is uncommonly full of compelling voices and utterly memorable characters. With these astonishingly accomplished, vivid and vital stories, Tom Hanks proves himself to be an exuberant writing talent and an exciting new voice in fiction,” Jason Arthur said.
There is also a tale involving an eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant on the hunt for something larger in America while there is yet another that revolves around the junket life of an actor.
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“I read a story by Tom in ‘The New Yorker’ several years ago, and was struck by both his remarkable voice and command as a writer. I had hoped there might be more stories in the works. Happily, for readers, it turns out there were,” Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Alfred A Knopf, said.
Hanks, who has delivered exceptional performances in films like ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘Cast Away’ among others, began writing the book 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,” the actor said.
The book will also be released in the audio format featuring the actor reading out the stories.
“We read these wonderful stories with mounting excitement and offered within hours of submission. This will be a major publication for us this autumn, indeed a major publishing event,” Susan Sandon said.
Publication of the book will be simultaneous with Knopf in the US and in addition, rights have already been sold in Canada, Japan, China, Germany, Italy, Brazil and the Netherlands.
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