It turns out that Tom Hanks is also a wise and hilarious writer with an endlessly surprising mind. Damn it. -Steve Martin

The central quality to Tom's writing is a kind of poignant playfulness. It's exactly what you hope from him, except you wish he were sitting in your home, reading it aloud to you, one story at a time. -Mindy Kaling

Wait-Tom Hanks can write, too? Funny, moving, deftly surprising stories? That's just swell. Maybe there's no crying in baseball, pal, but it's perfectly acceptable in the book business. That's how we drown envy. -Carl Hiaasen

Mr. Hanks turns out to be as authentically genuine a Writer with as capital a W as ever touched a typewriter key. The stories in UNCOMMON TYPE range from the hilarious to the deeply touching. They move in period, location and manner, but all demonstrate a joy in writing, a pleasure in communicating an intensely American sense of atmosphere, friendship, life and family that is every bit as smart, engaging and humane as the man himself. All with that extra quality of keenly observant and sympathetic intelligence that has always set Tom Hanks apart. I blink, bubble and boggle in amazed admiration. -Stephen Fry

Uncommon Type is funny, wise, gloriously inventive and humane. Tom Hanks sees inside people - a wary divorcee, a billionaire trading desire for disaster, a boy witnessing his father's infidelity, a motley crew shooting for the moon - with such acute empathy and good humour we'd follow him anywhere. The cumulative effect is of a world I didn't want to leave. -Anna Funder

Reading Tom Hanks's Uncommon Type is like finding out that Alice Munro is also the greatest actress of our time. -Ann Patchett

Seventeen wide-ranging and whimsical stories-with a typewriter tucked into each one. Only one of the stories in Hanks' debut features an actor: it's a sharp satire with priceless insider details about a handsome dope on a press junket in Europe. The other 16 span a surprisingly wide spectrum...Hanks can write the hell out of typing, and his dialogue is excellent, too. Has he read William Saroyan? He should. While these stories have the all-American sweetness, humor, and heart we associate with his screen roles, Hanks writes like a writer, not a movie star. -Kirkus Reviews

Uncommon Type offers heartfelt charm along with nostalgia for sweeter, simpler times - even if they never really were quite so sweet or simple... Even when Hanks writes about somber subjects like the durable distress of combat or the high stakes for immigrants fleeing persecution, he finds a sweet spot. -NPR

Ultimately if you like Tom Hanks - and who doesn't? - you will enjoy Uncommon Type. -AM New York

In Uncommon Type, Hanks proves his bona fides as a serious scribe, producing a collection of 17 short stories so accomplished and delightful he can rest assured he has a great fallback plan should that acting thing, you know, not work out... Terrific, Tom. -USA Today

There is often a powerful sense of other lives imagined at a level that goes deeper than writerly research. -The Guardian

Enjoyable...The Past Is Important to Us employs a sharp, unexpected conclusion to elevate a story of time travel and romance at the 1939 World's Fair. -Publisher's Weekly

They're all beautifully written and full of heart. -Sunday Mirror, The People

Hanks can write. These pieces, some of which feature recurring characters and many of which explore the classic American short story territory of small-town life, have the authentic, worn-in feel of a favourite pair of jeans. -Metro

The great strengths of this collection are decency and sentimentality. -Sunday Times

Playful, perceptive and rewarding. -Sunday Express

An entertaining collection. -Mail on Sunday

impressive. -The Sun

There always comes a slight wariness when we discover that someone who is generally renowned for one thing turns out to be very good at something else..