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The Last Lecture | 
 enlarge | Authors: Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Rating:  798 reviews
Sales Rank: 24
Format: Roughcut
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1401323251
Dewey Decimal Number: 004.092
EAN: 9781401323257
ASIN: 1401323251
Publication Date: April 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."br --Randy Pausch PA lot of professors give talks titled "iThe Last Lecture/i." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? PWhen Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. PIn this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come. /p p align=left span class="h1"strongQuestions for Randy Pausch/strong/span p img src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/a-plus/Pausch_Randy_300._V12349126_.jpg" border="0" hspace="5" vspace="5" align="right"We were shy about barging in on Randy Pausch's valuable time to ask him a few questions about his expansion of his famous Last Lecture into the book by the same name, but he was gracious enough to take a moment to answer. (See Randy to the right with his kids, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.) As anyone who has watched the lecture or read the book will understand, the really crucial question is the last one, and we weren't surprised to learn that the "secret" to winning giant stuffed animals on the midway, like most anything else, is sheer persistence. p strongAmazon.com:/strong I apologize for asking a question you must get far more often than you'd like, but how are you feeling? p strongPausch:/strong The tumors are not yet large enough to affect my health, so all the problems are related to the chemotherapy. I have neuropathy (numbness in fingers and toes), and varying degrees of GI discomfort, mild nausea, and fatigue. Occasionally I have an unusually bad reaction to a chemo infusion (last week, I spiked a 103 fever), but all of this is a small price to pay for walkin' around. p strongAmazon.com:/strong Your lecture at Carnegie Mellon has reached millions of people, but even with the short time you apparently have, you wanted to write a book. What did you want to say in a book that you weren't able to say in the lecture? p strongPausch:/strong Well, the lecture was written quickly--in under a week. And it was time-limited. I had a great six-hour lecture I could give, but I suspect it would have been less popular at that length ;-). p A book allows me to cover many, many more stories from my life and the attendant lessons I hope my kids can take from them. Also, much of my lecture at Carnegie Mellon focused on the professional side of my life--my students, colleagues and career. The book is a far more personal look at my childhood dreams and all the lessons I've learned. Putting words on paper, I've found, was a better way for me to share all the yearnings I have regarding my wife, children and other loved ones. I knew I couldn't have gone into those subjects on stage without getting emotional. pstrongAmazon.com:/strong You talk about the importance--and the possibility!--of following your childhood dreams, and of keeping that childlike sense of wonder. But are there things you didn't learn until you were a grownup that helped you do that? pstrongPausch:/strong That's a great question. I think the most important thing I learned as I grew older was that you can't get anywhere without help. That means people have to want to help you, and that begs the question: What kind of person do other people seem to want to help? That strikes me as a pretty good operational answer to the existential question: "What kind of person should you try to be?" p strongAmazon.com:/strong One of the things that struck me most about your talk was how many iother/i people you talked about. You made me want to meet them and work with them--and believe me, I wouldn't make much of a computer scientist. Do you think the people you've brought together will be your legacy as well? p strongPausch:/strong Like any teacher, my students are my biggest professional legacy. I'd like to think that the people I've crossed paths with have learned something from me, and I know I learned a great deal from them, for which I am very grateful. Certainly, I've dedicated a lot of my teaching to helping young folks realize how they need to be able to work with other people--especially other people who are very different from themselves. p strongAmazon.com:/strong And last, the most important question: What's the secret for knocking down those milk bottles on the midway? p strongPausch:/strong Two-part answer:br/ 1) long armsbr/ 2) discretionary income / persistencep Actually, I was never good at the milk bottles. I'm more of a ring toss and softball-in-milk-can guy, myself. More seriously, though, most people try these games once, don't win immediately, and then give up. I've won *lots* of midway stuffed animals, but I don't ever recall winning one on the very first try. Nor did I expect to. That's why I think midway games are a great metaphor for life. /p
Product Description
b"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." br--Randy Pausch/b PA lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? PWhen Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about iliving/i. PIn this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 793 more reviews...
 This book is awesome!!! November 22, 2008
Michael Jared Zweifel (Mesa, AZ)
Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" is a great companion to his YouTube hit lecture. He is so very insightful and comic at times. It will make you want to laugh and cry all in one.
Life-Affirming Life-Changing November 21, 2008
Ruby Slippers (Eden, NC USA)
With laughter and tears I devoured this must-read. Required reading for high schoolers, college students, engaged couples, married couples, parents-to-be, parents of teens, and those facing terminal health conditions: There's something here worth reading for every stage of life!
Book of the year November 19, 2008
C. Jensen (Utah)
This is one of the few books I have read this year that I can strongly recommend. Randy Pausch tells it like it needs to be told. He doesn't hold anything back and I was absolutely moved to tears. br /Many times in our lives, we know what we should be doing but don't always do it. The things that Randy says in this book are things we should be doing NOW instead of waiting for a terminal diagnosis. br /The thing about Randy that impressed me the most was that he refused to feel sorry for himself. What a terrific thing for us all to remember and live by. Many of us may have terribly difficult circumstances in our lives that are hard to live with. If a man with a terminal diagnosis can find happiness and productivity with a prognosis of pancreatic cancer, then we ALL can. br /If you read no other book this year, please read this one. I can almost guarantee you won't be disappointed.
 What's not to love? November 19, 2008
Linda L. Dalton (St. Louis, MO)
He had me at 'hello' . . . . Randy Pausch shares his journey with humor and pathos, reminding us that we, too, can live our lives and die our deaths with honesty and integrity. Having read his lecture earlier, I had hoped for more 'padding' in the book but found it satisfying, nonetheless.
The Last Lecture November 17, 2008
Lucy Powell (Valley Glen, CA)
Very intelligently written. Not what I expected, though. I thought it would be the lecture itself, so I was a bit disappointed. However, the message was inspirational and kept me turning the pages, so I guess that's what really counts.
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