Tom Hanks debut book of short stories due in October

Actors, when on the road, often have a lot of downtime between shoots. The actor — and producer and director — has written a collection of short stories, his first book, that will be published in October by the distinguished house Alfred A. Knopf. Hanks owns hundreds of vintage manual typewriters; in a piece for the New York Times, the Bay Area native celebrated “the sheer physical pleasure of typing; it feels just as good as it sounds, the muscles in your hands control the volume and cadence of the aural assault so that the room echoes with the staccato beat of your synapses.” Knopf said the stories in Hanks’ collection, begun in 2015, center on a diverse set of characters, including an immigrant in New York City, an ESPN celebrity and an eccentric billionaire. “I read a story by Tom in The New Yorker several years ago,” said Sonny Mehta, chairman and editor in chief of Alfred A. Knopf, and was struck by both his remarkable voice and command as a writer. ...