The Last Lecture

For Father's Day, my mom got me the recent bestseller The Last Lecture, by Dr. Randy Pausch. It is your typical self-help/feel good boomer book, but at just 4.5 hours (I 'read' in my car) I gave it a shot. The premise of the book is that Randy, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University is dying of pancreatic cancer and gave a 'last lecture' trying to convey what he thought was important about life. The lecture became a phenomemon and the book is about the lecture and his life advice. Just released earlier this year, the book leaves him with only a couple of months to live, and when I checked his site to see if he was still alive...Click below for more of LAST LECTURE:

I was shocked to find that he is indeed still alive, suffering from what looks like late stage cancer, but still fighting away. Randy has 3 children under 5 and a loving wife, and therefore patches of the book hit close to home for me (similarly situated family situation). To some extent, to hear the life lessons from any person on their deathbed would be compelling, but given Pausch's unique and optimistic approach to life, his were even more interesting. It is clear that he is not the type of person I would get along with...an overly 'fun' goofball cybertechnology professor. The reader of the audio CD also imbued the language with WAY too much enthusiasm, making it seem more like a ad for a juicer on QVC than an actual book. The book reads almost like a brag book for him, and was not enjoyable except for the last few chapters when he starts to really convey what he wants his children to know about him. An odd read.