'Last Lecture' Web Sensation Now a Book

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'Last Lecture' Web Sensation Now a Book

By Craig ,USA Today

Posted: 2008-04-10 13:37:47

http://news.aol.com/health/story/ar/_a/last-lecture-web-sensation-

now-a-book/20080408120609990001?icid=100214839x1159802230x1080123007

(April 8) - Randy Pausch is lying on his bed, his head propped up by

pillows, his hands interlocked on his chest. In his pressed khakis,

red polo shirt and bare feet, he looks the stereotypical suburban

dad, which he is.

And with his rosy cheeks and dark hair still wet from the shower, he

also looks the picture of health, which he is not. He's dying.

Pausch, 47, has pancreatic cancer, a terminal disease. So far he has

defied the odds, but the cancer has spread to his liver. His

prognosis is poor.

Pausch, a professor at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University,

isn't about dying, however. He's about living. Living for his wife

and their three young children. Living a good life as long as he can.

A now-famous lecture he gave at Carnegie in September has inspired

millions who have viewed it on YouTube to follow his example. He

hopes his new book, 'The Last Lecture' (Hyperion, $21.95), in stores

today, will do the same. His publisher is banking on 'Lecture' to

become the next 'Tuesdays With Morrie,' the mega-best-seller about

another dying professor.

Written with Wall Street Journal columnist Zaslow, 'The Last

Lecture' expands on Pausch's speech, in which he spoke of the

importance of having fun and dreams. It was delivered with good

humor. Hyperion, in a bidding war, paid $6.7 million to publish it.

The first printing is 400,000 copies, and it's being translated into

at least 17 languages.

The lecture, Pausch now says, was never meant for public

consumption, nor was it for his colleagues or students. It was for

his two sons and daughter: Dylan, 6, Logan, 3, and Chloe, 22 months.

The 'Last Lecture' (76 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=ji5_MqicxSo & eurl=http://news.aol.com/health/story/ar/_a/last-

lecture-web-sensation-now-a-book/20080408120609990001?

icid=100214839x115980223

More on This Story: Randy Pausch's Web Site and Blog

" I knew what I was doing that day, " he writes in the book's

introduction. " Under the ruse of giving an academic lecture, I was

trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the

beach for my children. "

Their photos and artwork are plastered all over the refrigerator at

his home in southeastern Virginia, where Pausch recently moved his

family so they can be near his wife's relatives when he dies. The

backyard boasts their jungle gym. The front yard is littered with

their toys. Pausch's bedstand is filled not only with red plastic

pill bottles but a blue-ink outline of a child's hand on a piece of

white paper. Dylan's.

" If people are finding inspiration, OK, but the book is for my

kids, " he says. It's crucial, he says, for his children " to have a

sense of how their parents felt about them. They need to know their

parents loved them and there was a connection. "

Pausch says he had no desire to turn his life, and death, into a

cottage industry. But much has been out of his control.

A Web Sensation

He became an Internet celebrity after the lecture at Carnegie, where

he is a professor of computer science, human computer interaction

and design. The " last lecture " is an academic tradition in which a

professor is invited to speak as if it's the last lecture he'll ever

give. In Pausch's case, it was.

The talk, videotaped by the university, became a phenomenon,

spreading like wildfire over the Web. More than 6 million people

have viewed it.

'Last Lecture' Highlights

" Be good at something, it makes you valuable. "

" The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are

there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.

Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want

it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people. "

" Don't complain. Just work harder. "

" Anybody can get chewed out. It's the rare person who says, 'Oh my

god, you were right.' As opposed to, 'No wait, the real reason

is ...' We've all heard that. When people give you feedback, cherish

it and use it. "

" You just have to decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore. I think

I'm clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate. Never

lose the childlike wonder. It's just too important. It's what drives

us. "

Source: Lecture transcript from cmu.edu

Pausch then was invited to appear on 'Oprah' and 'Good Morning

America' last fall. (He will be the focus of a Diane

Sawyer 'Primetime' special Wednesday on ABC.)

He decided to go on 'Oprah' only because she gave him the mike for

10 minutes. " I figured if I have the chance to give my dad's wisdom

(which he imparted in the lecture and includes the power of

humility) to 10 million people for 10 minutes, I should take it. "

Once again he was a hit.

Zaslow, who attended the Carnegie lecture and wrote a column about

it for the Journal, was not surprised by Pausch's powerful presence

on Oprah. Zaslow calls the professor " a consummate performer. He

loves an audience of any kind. "

Birth of a Book

But Pausch wasn't sure he wanted to use his limited time writing a

book. He did so at the urging of his wife, Jai, 41.

" It's much more cathartic than I thought it would be, " says Pausch,

who has stopped teaching. " I was completely surprised. "

He collaborated with Zaslow on his cellphone headset while riding

his bike through his neighborhood.

" I got to hear 53 extra lectures that no one else got, " says Zaslow,

who then condensed them into the book in two months.

" Originally Randy wasn't sure he'd be alive when the book was

written, " Zaslow says. " But he was healthy throughout. Every comma

mattered to him. Every thought mattered. He even counted the number

of references to each kid. He was very hands-on. It was fascinating

to see his mind work. "

Putting together a book with a dying author in a short time worked

to everyone's advantage, says , Hyperion's president.

" There was editing going on around the clock, " says. " It

added to the excitement of the whole project. Everything clicked. "

Powerful Reach

The bidding war to publish it indicates the industry " saw the

potential to reach people with something that has such power, "

says.

Excluding income from the sales of rights to foreign publishers,

Hyperion would need to sell about 800,000 copies in the USA to

recoup its investment, says Larry Kirshbaum, former CEO of Time-

Warner Book Group and now a literary agent.

Ash-Milby, a buyer for the bookstore chain & Noble,

believes Pausch's book could be the next 'Tuesdays With Morrie,' in

which Mitch Albom recounted his weekly meetings with a former

professor who was dying. The book has sold more than 14 million

copies worldwide since 1997 and became an Oprah Winfrey-produced TV

movie. (Pausch says he has never read 'Morrie.' " I didn't know there

was a dying-professor section at the bookstore. " )

Ash-Milby believes Web hits will translate into book sales in this

case. " Considering how many times it was watched, it has a strong

chance to be a No. 1 best seller, " he says.

The lecture has been seen all over the world, prompting viewers to

comment from as far away as South Africa. Tim Cohen, a columnist for

Business Day in Johannesburg, wrote that it was an only-in-America

story:

" What strikes me about this event was what an American story it is;

from the hokeyness to the hopefulness, it is hard to imagine

something with that unique mixture of goofy boldness and visionary

earnestness coming out of anywhere else. "

Though 'The Last Lecture' may seem to have Hollywood written all

over it, Pausch says there will be no movie.

" There's a reason to do the book, but if it's telling the story of

the lecture in the medium of film, we already have that, " he says,

referring to the video. " Besides, you lose control. "

Pausch spends his days sleeping, playing with the kids and watching

the big-screen TV at the foot of his bed, an acquisition he's

embarrassed by, although he admits he has become addicted

to 'Mythbusters' on the Discovery Channel. It fuels his love of

solving math problems.

His children have not been told he's dying, only that he is sick.

" They've been told that there's a weed growing in me and it had to

be cut out and then chemicals had to be used, " Pausch says. His son

Dylan asked if there was any way he could help. " They have to be

told they can't patch it and it's not their fault. "

He says he does not look forward to the day he has to tell them the

end is near.

" But until I'm very symptomatic, there's no need to talk about it. "

He'd rather concentrate on the now, like this morning when he

changed his baby's diaper. " I was a hero, " he says with a laugh.

More than 33,000 people in the USA die of pancreatic cancer every

year. (Actor Swayze was diagnosed with the disease last

month.) The average life expectancy after diagnosis is three to six

months, although chemotherapy and surgery have extended Pausch's

life. He was diagnosed in August.

Because Pausch has lived longer than expected, some bloggers have

claimed he isn't sick at all.

" Yes, well, if 6 million people have watched some or all of the

lecture, it's not too surprising a tiny handful might challenge

that, " he says. " After all, we have a whole generation of conspiracy

theorists who grew up watching The X-Files. "

Hoping for a Miracle

But Pausch's Virginia-based oncologist, Lee, attests to " the

unfortunate fact that he does indeed have metastatic, incurable

pancreatic cancer - the biopsy of his liver last summer proved it. "

" He was in the lucky group whose cancer responded to the initial

treatment, " Lee says. " However, his treatment hasn't been without

significant side effects, some of which landed him in the hospital

recently and will require at least some time away from chemo. He

appears to be recovering and is still healthy enough to keep

fighting. "

Pausch concedes that his " shelf life " is limited. But, he says, " I

don't want anyone to pity me or treat me like I'm already dead. I've

still got gas in the tank. "

He's not opposed to miracles, either.

" I'd love to be the one-in-5-million fluke. "