Customer Reviews

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This tiny volume-- barely bigger than a Poptart -- will only take a half-hour or so to read. Author Michael J. Fox of television and movie fame has penned this classic little book for graduates, and it's chock full of insight, humor and interesting stories from his life.

Right up front high-school-dropout Fox poses a question to the reader: "What the hell were you thinking?" He has since earned a GED (General Equivalency Degree) and several honorary college diplomas, but all in all Fox has learned much more in Life 101: "an amazingly comprehensive education, albeit unstructured, and often unbidden."

After listing other accomplished people who also bailed on formal education (including the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp and Ben Franklin), Fox dives into stories from his youth. For example, Fox learns economics through his experiences as a teenage actor, before being cast in Family Ties, dealing with agents and taxes. Later he learns deeper lessons as a recovering alcoholic, family man and as a person stricken with Parkinson's disease.

The overall impression is of a grateful and self-deprecating man with hard-won wisdom, writing with a light touch.

Another good book for a recent grad is Dr. Seuss's incomparable Oh, the Places You'll Go!.

Here's the chapter list:

Prologue: Finally... The Beginning

Part One
Two Schools
When Am I Ever Gonna Use This Stuff?

Part Two
Economics
Comparative Literature
Physics
Political Science
Geography


Part Three
Pay Attention Kid, You Might Learn Something

Part Four
Victims of Pomp and Circumstance

The Beginning... Finally

In "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future," Michael J. Fox recounts his learning experiences in life, applying the lessons learned to subjects in school, while providing some Hollywood tales and student advice along the way. The tome is really small and easy to carry around. This book would probably make a good gift for not only Fox's legions of fans, but any new graduates looking for some simple insight into life.

Fox applies his early life in L.A.--the life of a starving artist, a high school drop-out, and an optimist willing to risk everything for the life of his dreams--into subjects he would have learned, if he had gained this knowledge through a university education, rather than from his life. For instance, Fox compares his lessons in acting (the rules of supply and demand), in addition to poor money management during his first years in the U.S., to Economics. In a different section, he compares learning Comparative Literature, to going through tons of scripts for TV/movie projects. Other "subjects" included (compromised solely on Fox's life experiences with them), include Physics, Political Science, and Geography.

The writing is witty, and entertaining. I especially like the last two sections of the book, part three "Pay Attention Kid, You Might Learn Something" and part four, "Victims of Pomp and Circumstance." Fox's voice comes across as meaningful and easy to relate to, and some parts are especially touching. This book proves that ultimately lessons learned in life, are more lasting than anything learned in school. A recommended read.

I wish Amazon didn't consider 3 stars "critical" because I really liked Michael J. Fox's little book. It's just a slim little thing, probably would amount to about a half-hour speech if it were a script. It is impossible to not like this guy. He's engaging, sincere, self-deprecating, intelligent, deep, funny, classy, courageous, human, honest, warm..I could go on but then my review might be longer than the book!

In "Funny Thing...," which reads like an address to graduates, Michael J. Fox reveals a bit about his own life, dropping out of high school not just to further his acting career, but because he was learning disabled and struggling terribly in school, although he's obviously bright as a button. He gives some general advice to graduates, inspirational and thoughtful but general.

Smart release at graduation time, this makes the perfect vehicle for a heartfelt inscription and a nice check for your favorite graduate. I like it a lot.

Also recommended: Lucky Man, Mike's memoir up to his diagnosis of Parkinson's and the beginning of his recovery from alcoholism. For that book, five stars.

I really enjoyed this book. It made laugh out loud as I was reading it. This is the second book that I have read by Michael Fox and have enjoyed both. He is an engaging author and I look forward to his next book.

If you enjoy Michael J. Fox, his speaking, humor, I think this book is great. It's wonderful to hear him speak from experience and those who love him best, will get a kick out of it. I'm a huge fan & enjoy hearing what he has to say on his viewpoints, personal experience, etc. Enjoy!

Whether you're watching one of his movies or tv shows or reading one of his books, Michael J. Fox is one of those rare celebrities/ public figures who you feel like you know well. This book contains quotes and ideas that will stay with you for a long time, especially the ones about anticipating the worst situations and not living in the moment. While this book is supposedly written for newly graduated high school seniors, all ages will be able to find a personal connection and inspiration from the illustrative stories Mr. Fox has written. In a time when many of us feel powerless about so many issues, his stories illustrate just how much power we actually have. Children of the 80s like myself, who can quote just about every APK or Marty McFly line, will love taking a trip down memory lane as well.

This brief 115 page biography is very cool. It's written in the form of a college catalog and for every chosen subject Michael J. Fox tells us about the things he learned in his life related to the that topic. It sounds boring but it's a great read, I just can't do it justice. However, I have one complaint: Albert Einstein did graduate high school, in fact he also graduated from the University of Zurich... Some fact checking was needed and failed miserably on that factoid.

I bought this book for my mother who has Parkinson's Disease. We had read other of Michael J. Fox's books together and I thought she would like this too. I love his positive outlook and insightful quips. Depression can be a symptom of Parkinson's and this book and his others are exactly the encouragement we need to read.

I like Michael J. Fox and love what he has done to create awareness around Parkinson's Disease. This book however felt quite gratuitous and really not super substantial. A few months after reading it, I can't really point to one or two lessons that I took with me and as a result I can't really recommend this book to others. Perhaps if you are looking for a stocking stuffer, you may want to choose this one but otherwise I wouldn't spend the hour reading.

If this is your only exposure to Michael J Fox biographical books then you will no doubt get a lot more out of reading this, rate it higher and probably enjoy it a bit more too. But as someone who has read the sensational Michael J Fox autobiography Lucky Man and the not as good but does fill in timeline wise the gaps of what happened after the final pages of Lucky Man, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, there's very, very little new content here. Granted A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future, is a much catchier title than the other two books, and being it is a lot thinner you wonder if Fox and the publishers had regretted not using it before and just decided to do a summary book under the better title. This book is sort of like one of those cheat books students buy that summarise books so they don't have to read the thicker main book. That's pretty much what reading it is like, Fox basically just summarises his life experiences instead of taking you the reader into his childhood, school days, life as a struggling actor, successful actor, diagnosis of and living with Parkinson's Disease like he did with Lucky Man and to a lesser extent its sequel. It's like someone telling a really good story at party and the next week you hear them retelling it when there's new people there, but leaving out all the details. For example in this book we the reading audience are simply told another actor originally started filming as the character Marty McFly. In Lucky Man we were told who that was, (Eric Stoltz) and how Cher snubbed him at the Oscars (she had made the movie Mask with Stoltz) and a heap of other details. Teen Wolf and his feelings about the quality of that film, which he was making when Back to the Future started filming with Stoltz isn't even mentioned. The quality is in the details with Fox's autobiographical tales and that's missing with this hour long read.

There is very little new stuff you haven't read before in this book, in fact there's very little at all (it's just 100 pages). There's an account of the jungle taking over a film set in South East Asia, Fox compares five films to their original (or later written for Arthur C Clarke's 2001 Space Odyssey) novel, but that's pretty much it. Not enough content to warrant paying any money for, but you may want to check out A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future from your local library for the miniscule amount of new stuff that's in here.