In late 2006 Randy Pausch, a gifted and popular computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. A year later he gave a talk at the school as part of a Last Lecture series in which professors were asked to distill what most mattered to them in a hypothetical final speech. Less than a year later he was dead.
In the meantime his lecture became a YouTube sensation, prompting him to, with the help of Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow, expand his talk into a full-length book. The result is an unforgettable story that revisits familiar questions: What does it mean to be living your best life? How do we truly find happiness and fulfillment? What does it mean to live in the moment? What is our true legacy in life? Pausch’s speaks to these questions with irrepressible humor, humility, and playfulness. “We cannot change the cards we are dealt,” the author says, “just how we play the hand.” An inspiring, “living true” read!
