The Last Lecture  (English, Paperback, Pausch Randy)

A New York Times bestseller, The Last Lecture is a series of lessons modeled after Pausch’s legendary and spirited lecture given in Carnegie Mellon Hall. Interweaving personal stories and life lessons that abound in candid humor, The Last Lecture was a hit.

Summary Of The Book

On September 18, 2007, Randy Pausch gave a buoyant and optimistic lecture that was titled as The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams to a crowd of 400 people that included his students and colleagues. A month before he was due to give this lecture, he discovered that he had pancreatic cancer.

Due to the overwhelming response that he received during this lecture, which included a standing ovation even before he started, he decided to turn the lecture into a book. The Last Lecture was designed exclusively for his children with whom he wanted to share his words of wisdom. Especially after the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, he wanted to discuss the fabric of life that is often taken for granted by those who have the luxury of living.

He penned a number of stories from his childhood and adulthood that marked the choices he made and the subsequent lessons that they contained for character building. His experience with cancer is also discussed in succinct detail in a manner that inspires confidence. His remarks involve cheerful observations about his healthy countenance despite a debilitating condition that is terminal.

Pausch even goes so far as to muse on the possibility that he enjoys the opportunity that cancer has afforded him since he can now prepare his family and himself for his death. The lecture celebrates the indomitable nature of the human spirit even under the duress of a terminal illness. Pausch delivers a positive message for all the readers in this book.

The Last Lecture was published and automatically received commercial acclaim as it retained its position as a bestseller for over 112 weeks. It has gone on to sell more than 5 million copies in the United States alone and there had been speculation about adapting the book into a film. Pausch declined the offer to adapt it into a movie as the lecture existed as a popular video recording on the website, YouTube.

About Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science and human-computer interaction at the Carnegie Mellon University. His other books include Learning to Program with Alice, Time Management, and Adding Input And Output To The Transactional Model.

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Brown University. He completed his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon and worked at the University of Virginia as an assistant and associate professor in the department of Computer Science. He then returned to his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon, to teach. He co-authored five books and over 70 articles. He was honored by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008. He even has a memorial fellowship created in his honor by the Walt Disney Company. He passed away on July 25, 2008.