UNCOMMON TYPE contains seventeen stories, each in some way involving a different typewriter (Hanks is an avid collector of vintage typewriters and owns over one hundred of them). The stories feature 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.