Book Review: The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture is a set of ideas that Pausch presented in his last address to students, colleagues and family. His resilience, sense of humour and spirit to live are undoubtedly admirable. He has quite deliberately, hidden pearls of wisdom for his children. The public lecture is thus replete personal anecdotes. This makes the lessons very endearing. 

I found the video of his lecture is equally appealing. If someone comprehends well from listening, I think, a great deal of his writing can be understood from listening to his lecture. His lecture, not the summary of it available online. Having said that, there is a joy of reading the background story, the trepidation that he felt just before going on stage,  and the after thoughts to what he had shared on stage. This makes the book an engaging read. What I missed were the visuals from his lecture. 

There are many lessons that he shared that did not appear meaningful to me. He is a different person, with a different view of life. I don’t want to adopt everything he says. So I disagree with him on many counts. But we don’t have to agree with everything we read. His life lessons are a great learning experience. I strongly feel that his life experiences are a great lesson for parents. His parents provided him a lot of space to learn and grow. There is something to be learnt from them. Just for that, I would recommend the book to young parents. 

In fact, it is the first part of the book that appealed to me the most, where he talks of his childhood dreams. Even as I write this, I am sure there will be something else that will hold deeper meaning to me when I am in a different space in life. I do feel that this book will be useful to people (patients and caregivers) facing life threatening diseases and imminent death. Or to anyone who reflects deeply on death!

If you want to listen to his lecture, this link may be useful.