Always looking up
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15
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Average rating4
There are many words to describe Michael J. Fox: Actor. Husband. Father. Activist. But readers of Always Looking Up will soon add another to the list: Optimist. Michael writes about the hard-won perspective that helped him see challenges as opportunities. Instead of building walls around himself, he developed a personal policy of engagement and discovery: an emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual outlook that has served him throughout his struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Michael’s exit from a very demanding, very public arena offered him the time–and the inspiration–to open up new doors leading to unexpected places. One door even led him to the center of his own family, the greatest destination of all. The last ten years, which is really the stuff of this book, began with such a loss: my retirement from Spin City. I found myself struggling with a strange new dynamic: the shifting of public and private personas. I had been Mike the actor, then Mike the actor with PD. Now was I just Mike with PD? Parkinson’s had consumed my career and, in a sense, had become my career. But where did all of this leave Me? I had to build a new life when I was already pretty happy with the old one.Always Looking Up is a memoir of this last decade, told through the critical themes of Michael’s life: work, politics, faith, and family. The book is a journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and a testament to the consolations that protect him from the ravages of Parkinson’s.With the humor and wit that captivated fans of his first book, Lucky Man, Michael describes how he became a happier, more satisfied person by recognizing the gifts of everyday life.
Reviews with the most likes.
My husband has always been a huge Michael J Fox fan but is not a reader so his copy of Lucky Man has been read only once - by me and I really enjoyed it and found Michael J Fox to be a hugely entertaining, warm and very funny person who was happy to honestly reveal his faults and mistakes.
Therefore when I saw he had released a second book I immediately requested it and looked forward to reading it. This time around he splits the book into 4 sections looking at the things in life that have kept him positive since his Parkinsons diagnosis over a decade ago - family, politics, faith and his foundation. In each section we gain a glimpse behind a man who has had to redefine his persona over the years as he was forced to give up his acting career due to his illness and how he coped with the huge loss this left in his life.
An outstanding writer he is very entertaining, made me laugh out loud on several ocassions, was incredibly thought provoking about some of the issues surrounding stem cell research and also very gracious about some people who have directly hit out at him in the past few years as he tries to make progress towards a cure for Parkinsons Disease.
Absolutely inspired reading, I flew through this book and came away from it feeling that I'd learned something without having been preached to and with a new respect for Michael J Fox's ability to never give up.
