Book Review - The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

I believe I ordered this book from Amazon almost two years ago, and though my dear wife read it last year at some point, it got put on the shelf and I'd forgotten to read it until last week when I re-discovered it on the shelf and realized I had forgotten to read it. What a mistake! (that I had forgotten)

The Last Lecture is what became the very public "goodbye" of Dr. Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University after his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. Officially, the last lecture was given on September 18, 2007 and subsequently it was put in book form after Dr Pausch appeared on ABC News (Diane Sawyer), Oprah, etc. As expected, he did pass away last summer, July 25, 2008 (See the website for more complete information on all of the above).

I enjoyed the writing style of this book. I enjoyed the brutal honesty and humour of this book, the "optimistic" tone within a seemingly unthinkable prognosis. As a "young prof" (formerly), a guy who was a bachelor for a few years and got married a bit older, and as someone who's been aware of life/death issues for a while, I felt I had a few "extra" connections with the author. The only disappointment with the book is that Dr Pausch was not clearer on his personal faith perspective, even in the book, though I appreciate the reasons he "omitted" the religious/faith element in the official lecture.

I would highly recommend this book to any person, whether you know your death is imminent or not... As someone famous who's name I can't recall right now says, "If you are not ready to die, are you really ready to live?"