At a glance
Pages224
First published2020
Reading time~6h 30m
AudienceAdult
ISBN1250265630
No Time Like the Future by Michael J Fox
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for: Readers navigating chronic illness, loss, or the weight of time who want an intimate, mortality-honest memoir from someone who has lived publicly with Parkinson's for three decades — and who still finds wonder in the journey.
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No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality is Michael J. Fox's fourth memoir, a candid and warmhearted reckoning with Parkinson's disease, mortality, family, and the stubborn persistence of hope. Less a career retrospective than an honest meditation on living purposefully within an accumulating illness, it earns its place alongside Fox's three prior New York Times bestsellers through the same frankness he has brought to three decades of public advocacy. Readers seeking clinical detail on Parkinson's or a comprehensive entertainment biography will find the book's scope deliberately narrower — but those navigating chronic illness, loss, or the passage of time will find it unusually resonant.
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers drawn to memoirs about resilience, chronic illness, or mortality, No Time Like the Future delivers something genuinely substantive. Critics described it as 'heartfelt' and 'unselfish,' praising it as motivational material, while the Barnes & Noble synopsis calls it 'a moving account of resilience, hope, fear and mortality.' Fox's authority is unusual here — as founder of the world's leading Parkinson's research organization and a man who has lived publicly with the disease for over three decades, his firsthand reckoning carries real weight. The key caveat is scope: readers expecting a comprehensive entertainment biography or clinical information about Parkinson's will find the book more narrowly focused on personal and philosophical terrain.
- Similar books
- Readers who connect with No Time Like the Future may also find resonance in When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, another celebrated memoir in which a writer confronts mortality with clarity and grace. Out of the Corner: A Memoir by Jennifer Grey offers a fellow entertainment-world perspective on navigating personal adversity and reinvention. For a reflection on a well-lived life and its meaning, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter covers similar ground of legacy, aging, and purpose. Patrick Stewart's Making It So: A Memoir and Fox's own earlier Lucky Man are also natural companions for readers interested in celebrity memoirs that go beyond career highlights to tackle deeper personal reckonings.
- Who should read this?
- No Time Like the Future is well suited to anyone navigating chronic illness, loss, aging, or the passage of time — its resonance extends well beyond Parkinson's patients to a broad adult readership. Fans of Fox's earlier memoirs (Lucky Man, Always Looking Up, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future) will find familiar frankness and humor here, though the tone is more reflective and mortality is more explicitly front and center. Those who appreciate celebrity memoirs that reach beyond career highlights to tackle genuine philosophical reckoning — in the manner of When Breath Becomes Air or A Full Life — are the ideal audience. Readers wanting a clinical Parkinson's resource or a comprehensive account of Fox's work on Family Ties, the Back to the Future series, or Spin City will find that material present but secondary.
- What is the Michael J. Fox Foundation?
- Fox founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research in 2000, and it has grown into the world's leading Parkinson's disease research organization. No Time Like the Future is the memoir in which he most directly confronts both the personal cost and personal meaning of that mission, giving the book an authority that goes beyond individual reflection. His firsthand account of building and driving the Foundation is cited by reviewers as one of the memoir's distinguishing qualities.
- Is the book funny or heavy?
- It is both — and that balance is one of the qualities most consistently praised by reviewers. Fox's trademark humor surfaces throughout not as avoidance of difficult subjects but as a genuine part of how he processes hardship. His description of flying over the Himalayas — 'Flying over the Himalayas is like housesitting for God' — is a representative example of a voice that can locate wonder and levity even amid frank passages pondering death. The result is a memoir that covers grief, hope, resilience, and humor rather than dwelling in a single emotional register.
- Where should I start with Fox's memoirs?
- Fox has written four memoirs in total. Lucky Man (2002) is the natural starting point — it covers his early career and his Parkinson's diagnosis and disclosure, and was his first New York Times bestselling memoir. Always Looking Up and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future followed, each also reaching the bestseller list. No Time Like the Future (2020) is the most recent and most explicitly philosophical, arriving at a moment when Fox's optimism is tested not by the newness of his diagnosis but by its accumulating weight — making it the most natural endpoint of the four rather than the entry point.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
What is the Michael J. Fox Foundation?
Is the book funny or heavy?
Where should I start with Fox's memoirs?
Summarize this book
No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality is Michael J. Fox's fourth memoir, originally published in November 2020. Fox examines his life through the lens of his ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease — a diagnosis he received in 1991 at age 29, seven years before he disclosed it publicly — reflecting on illness, aging, family, friendship, and how perceptions of time shape the way people live. The book moves across a broad emotional range, from candid passages pondering death to warmer memories of a safari in Tanzania and a trip to Mount Everest, anchored throughout by Fox's affection for his wife of three decades, Tracy Pollan Fox, their four children, and the family dog Gus. Where his earlier memoirs focused on defying a prognosis, this fourth volume is more about living honestly within one.
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Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
Reading level
Adult
Content to know about
frank discussion of terminal illness and mortality
candid reflection on physical decline
Skip if you're looking for a comprehensive Michael J. Fox career biography or a clinical resource on Parkinson's disease.
Editorial Review
No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality is a memoir by Michael J. Fox — actor, activist, and founder of the Michael J.…
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