Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Last Lecture


Title: The Last Lecture
Author: Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
Publisher: Hachette Livre Australia
$34.99


In September 2007, Computer Science professor Randy Pausch gave a stirring and emotional last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What made it so special was that Randy, at age 47, was not retiring or moving to another university; Randy was dying. This was his last chance to impart his short life’s worth of accumulated knowledge and wisdom to that packed the lecture hall to hear him.

So inspirational, warm and humorous was this one hour lecture that it became a YouTube sensation and Randy was convinced to recreate his slideshow presentation in manuscript form. The result is the uplifting, emotional and thought provoking book “The Last Lecture.”

Randy talks frankly about the cancer which is slowly consuming his body, of all the things he knows he will miss out on, how he will not be there for his young children (all aged under 7) and wife in the future. He teaches the reader of the lessons he has learnt in life that he would like to pass on to his children but which he will be unable to do so. He reveals many personal thoughts and memories to illustrate these lessons.

It would have been easy for Randy to become maudlin in his misfortune at having lived a healthy, active life yet be dying so young. Instead he has created a work that is not only a must-read guide on how to live a great life that will empower yourself and those around you to achieve your dreams but will also serve as a wonderful lasting legacy for his family.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, wonder if the library will get this in...I remember hearing about it a while back - sounds pretty cool :-)

Anonymous said...

Managed to request it but I'm number 9 in the queue - how crazy is that! Must be heaps of people reading your review and going to the library to ask for it ;-)