Is The Last Lecture By Randy Pausch Worth Reading?

Question

It's on my 'life-changing books' list but I worry the cancer memoir genre could feel overly sentimental. How's its lasting impact beyond the viral lecture?

Torongeau M Jacqueline Cook · Answer

This is an extremely short yet incredibly inspiring read off of his actual speech. And, as always, life advice (particularly the parts that are sooptimistic) can be so much better in nonfiction form. And even just the two main themes of Legacy and Using Your Time best would make for a VERY powerful fiction story. For instance, the short story “The Billionaire’s Last Clause” is basically a corporate thriller where the recently-diagnosed billionaire uses his last clause in a will as a tactic in a high-stakes battle against his possible heirs. It makes a pretty boring philosophical concept into a very real and intense fight.

Piper · Answer

I picked up The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch at a particularly low point in my life. Although it did not solve all of my immediate problems, the book shifted my perspective considerably. Rather than reading a series of lectures by someone who wants to help others to achieve, Pausch delivers a life manual replete with humor, honesty and wisdom. Yes, much of it is extremely inspirational. But, it is also extremely real. One of the phrases that has stuck with me for years is that brick walls exist for one reason: to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.

The book is very practical. The section on managing time was worth the cost of the book alone. As for loving and being loved in the face of tragedy – I never realized that that was what all the romance novels I read were trying to tell me. This book is the kick in the pants you need to start living life and prioritizing what’s truly important to you.

Peter · Answer

I usually try to avoid reading motivational books because they have too much fluff and not enough substance, but The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch was recommended to me so often that I felt I had to read it. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by his advice on how to enable others to achieve their dreams. We just painted a kid’s bedroom and I used the opportunity to teach him some quadratic equations and I am now going to volunteer to be a mentor to some kids at a local youth club because of this chapter.

Of course, some have criticized Pausch of being too sentimental in The Last Lecture, but his Earned Emotional Weight far outweighs any cliche. Moreover, his advice is actually actionable. I applied his feedback checklist to our current projects at work last month, and you can feel the heightened sense of productivity from my team.

Dylan · Answer

My friend forced me to read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch after my dad passed away. I was resistant to reading a book about dying when I was still trying to come to terms with my dad’s death. However, Pausch writes with such an upbeat, positive voice that it instantly takes away from the heaviness of the topic of dying. Similar to the professor in the calculus book I read for school, Randy Pausch makes dying fun to read about too. His book goes back and forth between his time as an academic, his family, and his illness and it never feels like it is jumping around too much.

The ‘head fake’ in this book is wonderful – he manages to teach lessons about life through apparently unrelated stories and then you realize he has been giving you a masterclass in the qualities needed to overcome adversity. It’s not perfect – some parts are even dull – but it’s also completely human. These days I give The Last Lecture to new graduates instead of books that tell you to ‘follow your passion’.

James Tomas · Answer

One could even view this work as a companion to his forays into virtual reality, seeking to construct the longest lasting emotional experience of all – for his children, his students, and everyone else on the planet. The book is a permanent virtual Father to his kids.

As a meta-layer to this, I can only say that the book is a tool. It was designed to create a specific experience. And seeing it this way, as I do, as a ‘designed experience’ rather than a simple memoir by a professor of human-computer interaction, adds a whole layer of interest to it. It’s a really interesting object, designed by a master designer of experiences to create a lasting impact. It’s a case study in legacy design.

Jasmineemerald Avila · Answer

What I found to be the most haunting and beautiful of all his talk about the ‘elephant in the room’, i.e. his cancer, was how he did NOT shy away from the topic of his cancer, yet at the same time managed to NOT make it the main focus of the talk. Rather, he managed to acknowledge it and make light of it, and then to steer the rest of the talk back to living!

This single skill can be applied in countless ways to deal with your own ‘elephants’ of any size. The book is essentially a long lecture on how to survive by acknowledging the unbearable yet choosing to focus on the meaningful instead. It’s not an easy read but it’s very practical in the end.

Dianna Tumbaga · Answer

This book can be very worth it depending on the timing of your read. I read this during a period of grief in my life, and it was healing in many ways. It didn’t sugarcoat death, but showed how to confront it with dignity and purpose. My friend read this recently while in a very happy place in his life, and thought it was a nice little book and rather forgettable.

The book meets you where you are. It can be so much for someone who feels lost, so little for someone who is currently happy and thriving and focused. The best advice I can offer you is to get a copy of this book and shelve it. Then, when you need it most, whether that be because you are feeling complacent about time and need a catalyst to be more present, or you are feeling fearful of time and need a perspective on how to face it with grace, or you just need to be reminded of how precious time is and how to use it well, you read it then.

Amanda Guerrini · Answer

I didn’t go into this book expecting a traditional memoir. Instead I found an expanded lecture wrapped in heart. So while there are many great stories and anecdotes in the book, they are generally connected to explore various themes from the lecture. Usually a chapter has only a few pages of reading which is great for reading in brief intervals of time.

Worth it? Maybe not. This is contemplative nonfiction, not argument-driven nonfiction. If you enjoy the writer as he reflects on his life through these little stories then yes. However, the value in the book is in these little moments not in some grand overarching thesis. Read the book for the little moments like the story of his car, the stories about loyalty, and his apology to his childhood football coach.

Manuela Cab Salazar · Answer

I appreciate the lack of emphasis on wanting to go on some huge adventure or reach some sort of climax. No, the fundamentals of life are simple things like honesty, gratitude, perseverance, and love. He calls the “dreams” of children simple childhood curiosities that most people grow out of. They’re simple, relatable.

Of greatest worth is the book’s grounding. This is a fantasy about an extraordinary life, but read as a blueprint for finding the extraordinary in an ordinary, principled life. His childhood dream was to be in zero gravity. He achieved that through cleverness and the kindness of the people at NASA. The book shows that a meaningful life is made up of choices rather than a singular destiny. It’s a reassurance and a pragmatic message that makes for a great read.

Nurasikin Azmi · Answer

Nimmons focuses on the specificity of this man’s dreams and how he worked to fulfill them rather than striving for amorphous success. This man wanted to experience zero gravity, to write an article for the World Book Encyclopedia, to be a Disney Imagineer, all specific childhood ambitions. The book demonstrates that it is these idiosyncratic dreams and passions, rather than some bland notion of success, that can create a meaningful and unique life.

This book is wonderful for a society where most people are pursuing some version of success as defined by someone else. It is wonderful because it gives permission to each of us to consider the value of our own most idiosyncratic childhood ambitions. Even if we are unable to fulfill them, the acknowledgment of their importance can guide us in some unexpected ways. So, in the end, Strange Weather is a love letter to individuality, wrapped in the story of someone seeking to find meaning.

Christal · Answer

As a book for and by various communities (in particular self-help) it transcends said group. Many academics have incorporated it into their teaching. Tech types read Pausch’s work here. People dealing with bereavement find inspiration in his take on legacy. Pausch’s work is highly applicable to the business world in terms of presentation and leadership. Yet, beneath all that is a fundamental exploration of human challenges to which there is no one solution.

Yes, it is worth reading. Pausch’s work can create a myriad of interesting discussions between a professor and a student, a CEO and an employee, a patient and a therapist, and even a gamer and his/her peers. It can be a very powerful and cultural significant reference point for work in very different fields, effectively a unifying text in our present day fragmented world.

Is The Last Lecture By Randy Pausch Worth Reading?

11 Answers

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