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| The Last Lecture | 
 enlarge | Author: Randy Pausch
Publisher: Hyperion New York
Category: Book
Buy New: $12.47
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Avg. Customer Rating:  749 reviews
Sales Rank: 17488
Media: Paperback
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1401309658
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781401309657
ASIN: 1401309658
Publication Date: 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 744 more reviews...
 If "he not busy being born is busy dying", Randy Pausch is immortal April 8, 2008
1164 out of 1215 found this review helpful
One of the staples of "the college experience" at many schools is the "last lecture" --- a beloved professor sums up a lifetime of scholarship and teaching as if he/she were heading out the door for the last time. It's the kind of tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches talk that may or may not impart useful knowledge and lasting inspiration, but almost surely gives all present some warm and fuzzy feelings.
But a "last lecture" by Randy Pausch was different in every possible way. The professor of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University was just 46, and this really was his last lecture --- he was dying.
And dying fast. In the summer of 2006, Pausch had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a ferociously efficient killer. Only 4% of its victims are alive five years after diagnosis. Most die much faster. Think months, not years.
Pausch fought back. Surgery. Chemo. Progress. But in August of 2007, the cancer returned --- and now it had metastasized to his liver and spleen. The new prognosis: 3-6 months of relative health, then a quick dispatch to the grave, leaving behind a wife and three little kids.
On September 18, 2007 --- less than a month later --- Randy Pausch gave his last lecture.
No one would have faulted him for launching a blast about desperately seizing opportunities in an irrational universe. Instead, Pausch delivered a laugh-filled session of teaching stories about going after your childhood dreams and helping others achieve theirs and enjoying every moment in your life --- even the ones that break your heart. Pausch's philosophy, in brief: "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
The lecture was taped, and slapped up on YouTube. Jeffrey Zaslow wrote about it in The Wall Street Journal, and news shows made Pausch "person of the week" --- and soon Pausch had a book deal reported to be worth almost $7 million. Few expected him to be alive when it was published.
On February 19, I interviewed Randy Pausch for Reader's Digest. To the surprise of many --- including Pausch --- he was still his recognizable, energetic self. As I write (in early April, 2008), Pausch reports he's recovering from a standing eight count. But his good news doesn't deceive him. He notes that pancreatic cancer did to the photographer Dith Pran ("The Killing Fields") what Pol Pot couldn't --- it buried him in three months.
And now we have the book. It's two books, really, because it reads one way with the author still among us and will surely read differently when "The Last Lecture" is like the The Butterfly and the Diving Bell --- the record of a dead man, talking. The first book invites your support and gives you a wake-up call. The second, I suspect, is also a wake-up call but, between the lines, reminds you that even happiness can't save you from death.
Somewhere in between --- in the quiet space where a book really lives --- is a document that accomplishes a lot in 200 pages. It's about paying attention to what you think is important (when asked how he got tenure early, Pausch replied, "Call me at my office at 10 o'clock on Friday night and I'll tell you") and working hard and listening really well. It's easy to miss that last part of that in the emotion and the stories surrounding this book, but Pausch argues that hearing what other people say about you and your work is crucial to success and happiness. Because this is what you get: "a feedback loop for life."
So, if you must, shed your tears for Randy Pausch. Imagine what it would be like if you or your dearest loved one drew the card called pancreatic cancer. And then put dying aside, and get on with your dreams. Amazing how many you can achieve if you want them badly enough. And how they have the power to cushion the pain when the bad stuff happens.
Sounds crazy, I know: Pollyanna in the cancer ward. But I talked with the guy. And we laughed and laughed. Of all the achievements in a life that's winding down, that's got to be up there.
 I can't recommend buying this. April 18, 2008
419 out of 587 found this review helpful
I really liked the lecture. I've downloaded both Prof. Pausch's time management lecture and this one. So I'm a fan. I have nothing against Prof. Pausch, though I do think that his friends jokingly calling him "St. Randy" is pretty funny. I see a lot of hero-worship of him on the web.
He's a very charismatic, very intelligent, very passionate guy. These are great qualities. They also make his last lecture fun to watch.
But the book is just that, a book. And while I'm sure those who have seen the lecture can imagine Prof. Pausch (okay, I don't know the man, but he seems like a first-name kind of guy-as opposed to a "title" sort of person, and I'm definitely a first-name kind of person, so I'm going to switch to calling him Randy now.) saying the words, there's a lot lost without seeing Randy's passion.
The book has some more stories from Randy's life, and there's some elaboration on some of the ones he does talk about, but Randy's a good professor. He really distilled the most important and most interesting parts into his lecture (with the possible exception of wooing his wife, Jai, but I found that story not substantially more compelling or instructive than his grad school admission story). Actually, let me sum it up for you: they met while he was visiting a campus where she was studying, her job was to host him, they went on a date, she doesn't want a long-distance relationship, he sends her flowers and she changes her mind, they get more serious, she gets scared while he's down there for a seminar and he gives her support by checking in on her a bit, she realizes she loves him.
This is a pretty short book. Frankly, the extra stories and the elaboration beyond the lecture don't make it worth the money when the lecture-with the advantage of seeing Randy's personality-is available for free.
I did have some qualms about writing this review; after all, Randy puts the lecture and transcript of his last lecture out there for free. And if I'd only seen the video once and couldn't see it again, I'd most likely want the book. So in a sense, I'm penalizing the book for that generosity. On the other hand, if I had never seen the video, this is probably not a book that I would buy. There are a lot of good self-help books out there and I'd probably flip through this book, decide there was too much stuff about computers in there and too much of the same old stuff in not an exceptionally well-done way and leave it on the shelf.
If you're curious, I'd check it out at the library or flip through it in the book store. But don't buy this book sight unseen.
If the book had touted that all or even some of its proceeds went to pancreatic cancer research, I would have bought the book. Out of guilt, if nothing else. I really enjoy listening to the lecture and it's free and I'd like to give something back for that. But there was no mention of any kind of donation of the sort. Actually, donations to an organization like that might be the best way to show gratitude and support.
 The life and dying of a decent man April 10, 2008
391 out of 424 found this review helpful
UPDATE: Randy Pausch passed away on Friday, 25 July 2008. R.I.P.
At one point in my life, I spent a couple of years as a hospital chaplain, ministering pretty regularly to folks who were dying. I discovered one thing: generally people died as they had lived. How a person approaches his or her dying reveals a great deal about the values, character traits, dispositions, and attitudes with which they navigated the business of living.
What comes through clearly in Randy Pausch's little book is that he's a guy who's incredibly decent and loving. He writes warmly of his childhood and his parents; he assures us that he's achieved just about every goal he dreamed of as a youth; he appears to be a good and dedicated teacher; he loves his wife and kids; and even when he assures us that he, like everyone else, has personality issues that need working on--he is, he tells us, a "recovering jerk"--his admitted foibles seem pretty tame. Pausch is Joe Everyperson.
I think that's the value of his Last Lecture. Pausch clearly isn't of a philosophical bent of mind. If you pick up his book looking for profound existential discussions about human frailty and mortality (as, I confess, I did), you're not going to find them. I've no doubt that, since the onslaught of his illness, he and his wife Jai have endured despairing dark nights of the soul, paralyzing bouts of panic, and heart-pounding rage against the dying of the light. But except for very rare intimations, Pausch draws a veil over such episodes, and instead offers a mixture of autobiographical reflections and homespun tips on making the most of life (such as managing time, re-thinking priorities, and learning to listen to others). As he tells us, his final lecture to us is about life more than death.
Pausch's ability to hang onto the everyday, to the ordinary aspects of life even as his own draws to an end, is both the book's strength and its weakness. It's a strength in that it spotlights human courage and compassion, and in this regard The Last Lecture is an inspirational success. But one also senses that Pausch's insistence on staying on the surface of things might suggest a deep resistance to the unsettling fact that the surface of things is inexorably slipping away from him. One can talk candidly about one's death without having come to terms with the reality of what one's saying.
I say this without any intent whatsoever of making a value judgment. Each of us copes with death the best we can, and I have no window into Pausch's soul. It's just that after reading (and rereading) his book, I don't really feel as if I've come to know him. Although The Last Lecture is the story of Randy Pausch's life and dying, I sometimes got the uncanny impression that he wasn't really in it. At the end of the book, I felt as if I'd gotten to know his wife, Jai, better than I knew Pausch.
But these reservations should be taken as they're intended: reflections, not necessarily criticisms, of a moving story about a man confronting the mystery all of us must face. Pausch's book, the chronicle of an ordinary man trying to die as decently as he lived, is well worth reading.
 Very Disappointing. April 14, 2008
208 out of 418 found this review helpful
I was looking forward to reading "The Last Lecture," but was left empty and feeling duped. There is very little substance of any kind in this book leading me to believe that the vast majority of the over-the-top glowing reviews here are from the author's family and friends who want to help him out in his time of need. Check this book out at your local library before you lay down hard-earned coin to buy this one.
The fact is, his incredibly trite and trivial ruminations on his life and advice for readers ring hollow and flat. There's just no depth. It doesn't help that there is nothing in this book you haven't heard a thousand times already (e,g, "never give up," "no job is beneath you," "dream big," etc.)
Unfortunately, this is little more than a highly commercial and contrived series of very short, and in some cases mind-numbingly boring and strangely boastful stories about very ordinary experiences in Pausch's life without any real context, meaning or value. This book is a two-hour read.
To enjoy a book like this, you have to care deeply about the author. I just couldn't/didn't -- despite desperately wanting to. He's just not a terribly likeable or very interesting guy. As an insightful/meaningful/interesting/entertaining read, this book makes "All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" look like a Pulitzer Prize winner.
If you're looking for real insight into what it means to be human in the face of illness and death, check out Peter Barton's book "A Short Life Well Lived." It's head and shoulders above this tripe. Best wishes, Mr. Pausch, to you and your family during this difficult time, but this book is largely rambling nonsense.
A Big Gift in a Small Package April 9, 2008
133 out of 144 found this review helpful
As I opened the shipping box from Amazon.com, I found two preordered copies of Randy Pausch's book, one for my family and one for whoever needs it most within the next few weeks. This could be a friend or business acquaintance who has reached some personal crisis or turning point. I'll know. Randy's message will find the right recipient.
This book is a very large gift in its compact, neatly bound actuality. It is a gift of hope and affirmation.
Two weeks ago I said good-bye to a friend and business colleague who at 58 died of pancreatic cancer. His was a more private passing, but nevertheless he fought the disease until the disease won, and he died with dignity. Two days before his death, he called a mutual friend to wish this friend good luck with minor corrective surgery. Even two days before death, my stricken friend was thinking of others' welfare. As I sat in his memorial service with 300 other mourners, watching a slide presentation of his photographs and original art, I also thought about Randy Pausch. The two personalities mixed together because they share so many of the same qualities: creativity, gusto for living, a sense of humor, lifelong dedication to giving back to their communities, and a profound faith in personal power.
This is the story of The Last Lecture: that we can face any challenge in this life as long as we welcome our fate with optimism and determination to confront all odds. We can live for the welfare of others.
The good professor is his own metaphor. In this final gift, he both teaches and does.
Much will be said about this book and its immediate iconic impact on a nation experiencing the doldrums of war, economic turmoil and loss of standing among other nations. Here in the story of one American sharing the wisdom of our universal humanity, our fragility, our mortality. Here's one of our best and brightest.
In the ways of passionate storytellers, Randy Pausch and coauthor Jeffry Zaslow tell us how to achieve the most vital of all human yearnings: realization of childhood dreams. Within this narrative are timeless lessons of showing gratitude, setting goals, keeping commitments, tolerating frustration, maintaining a sense of humor in the face of adversity, telling the truth, working hard, celebrating victories when they arrive, and choosing to be a fun-loving Tigger over a sad-sack Eeyore.
Life is short, much shorter now for this professor. And this "last lecture" is no less significant for the young and healthy as it is for the sick and old.
Dream big, reach for the stars now.
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