Home Page

Autobiography / Biography   Travel / Places   Cooking / Food   Fashion / Health / Beauty   Other / General / Self-Help   Crafts / Home Improvement   Humor
Wildlife Greeting Cards

Always Looking Up - The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
by Michael J. Fox
Hyperion
ISBN 978-1-4013-0338-9
Published April 2009 - Hardcover - 279 pages - $25.99

The first six pages of this book is a testament to this man's determination to get on with life, and also to his irrepressible sense of humor.  If you can't laugh at yourself....  This book is his story since leaving the very successful sitcom Spin City, what he's been up to, and what he's learned.  Very humbling lessons which he graciously shares with us.  He divides what he has to say into these categories: Work, Politics, Faith, and Family.  Naturally, much of what he writes about is Parkinson's Disease and what it has meant to him, but he touches on relationships (family, friends, and business), ethics, support, coping mechanisms, and much more.  Fox relates personal stories about his family and others with charm, humor, and dignity.  I agree wholeheartedly with this sentence on religion and faith: "Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like".  (I say, "live and let live" and truly believe people should not force their beliefs on others as the only belief.  Look around you, it's happening daily and getting us nowhere.)
Editorial: For me, stem cell research shouldn't be "the argument" it is.  It's simple: use umbilical cord stem cells (am I being too naïve?).  I feel God would be applauding us for using our noggins to help others without harming anyone in the process.  To those moralists I say, get off your high horses, can't you see the logic?  And if you're so righteous, why allow in vitro in the first place?
Visit the Michael J. Fox Foundation website.  Please also see my reviews of Lucky Man and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future.
Conclusion - Totally inspiring and a joy to read.  I love this guy - his ideals, his guts, his philosophy, and his sense of humor.  READ THIS BOOK!