MJF New Book: A Funny Happened On The Way To The Future

[Just My Show]

Michael J. Fox has an upcoming new book. It releases April 13, 2010.

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Michael J. Fox: ‘Always Be Available to Your Kids’

CBS/Francis Specker /Landov
In a new interview with Reader’s Digest, dad-of-four Michael J. Fox quips that “it feels like five sometimes.” The actor, 48, turns serious, however, when asked to provide parenting advice that begins with the word “always.”

“Always be available to your kids,” the author of Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, suggests. “Because if you say, ‘Give me five minutes, give me 10 minutes,’ it’ll be 15, it’ll be 20. And then when you get there, the shine will have worn off whatever it is they wanted to share with you.”

The extra effort almost always pays off. “I’ve never gotten up to see something one of my kids wanted to show me and not been rewarded,” Fox adds. Esmé Annabelle, 8, twins Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances, 15, and Sam Michael, 20, are Fox’s children with wife Tracy Pollan.

[Family Ties Forever!]

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Michael J. Fox Releases Third Book



By Darragh Worland | Monday, April 19, 2010 4:59 PM ET

This time, the actor shares his life lessons as though they were courses in the curriculum of life.

Could anyone be more likable than actor Michael J. Fox? There's just about nothing he can do that we wouldn't want to follow. We fell in love with him as Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties (even if our politics didn't match those of his Ronald Reagan-loving character), we were right there with him when he took us Back to the Future three times and then again when he was back in our living rooms as deputy mayor of New York City on Spin City.

And of course, we've been with him ever since he was first diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a fate that would have been unbearable to behold in our beloved teen star if it weren't for his incurable optimism in the face of it. How could we be depressed about his condition if he himself refused to let it get in his way?

Fox's indomitable spirit has triumphed again with the release of his third book since 2002. This time, Fox is sharing his hard-won life lessons in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future. Though Fox himself dropped out of high school to pursue his acting career (he did get his GED later in life,) and never went to college, he's given several commencement addresses and even admits to having a little bit of an imposter syndrome, according to NPR.

But with A Funny Thing Happened, Fox makes peace with the road not taken and comes to see his life lessons as a kind of schooling in the more critical aspects of day to day life. In the short and sweet book, he breaks down his events of his life as though they were courses in a degree program and shares them with us in a commencement-speech sort of way.

"I think you learn more from disappointment," he tells NPR. "I think that success loses its sheen after a while and you begin to see that there's not such thing as absolute success. There's always failure and there's always disappointment and there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums."

This isn't the first time Fox has found a way to make the best of a bad situation. In fact he seems hardwired to look on the bright side. His first book was called Lucky Me: A Memoir and he's often said that when people ask him if he ever asks "why me?" in the face of his disease that he always answers "why not me?" His second book, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, released just last year, recounted the last ten years of his life and the roles that work, politics, faith and family have all played in shaping his worldview.

NPR interviewed Fox this week and if you listen to the whole piece, included below, you'll start to understand why he's not only an award-winning actor, but also a bestselling author. He's got a lot to say and we want to hear more!