第一次知道 Randy Pausch这个名字是在我最喜欢的电视节目 “Oprah Winfrey Show”里面，那时Oprah向大家推介 “The Last Lecture”这本书， 也在节目中见到了精神奕奕，一点也看不出是垂死病人的 Randy Pausch。 在节目中他从容而 积极地面对绝症和死神的态度，不仅令人肃然起敬，相信对观众们原本对死亡的态度也起了一定的冲击。
作者撰写这本书的原意其实是希望为自己3名年纪尚轻的孩子留下父亲的话，然而其中的内容不仅感动了他的学生，也感动了千千万万的读者。 “The Last Lecture”这本书里面，作者描述了他与父母、启蒙导师、上司、同事、姐妹、外甥、妻子、孩子、学生之间的互动； 对自己的童年、成长点滴、实现梦想、成家、育儿的所有态度、观念、体验一一娓娓道来；纵使是对自己突然被发现身处绝症末期的残酷现实，他也用一贯理性且幽默的口吻平静地叙述。
无论我怎样介绍，都无法表达出我在阅读这本书时的感动。 那些成为他的父母、家人、朋友、同事，学生，孩子（虽然他没有机会陪他们长大），甚至读者/观众是何其幸运！ 这本书是Randy Pausch所能给予我们的“最后一堂课”，他用临终前珍贵的时光完成了这本书，也为自己在这世上留下了永恒的印记，将继续成为指引人生的明灯。
The Last Lecture，by Randy Pausch （虽然没有看到有中文版，但是原版写得浅白易读，是值得买来阅读并珍藏一生的书）
RM34.90 / Kinokuniya Bookstore at KLCC
若你想亲自观赏Randy生前最后的几堂课，也可在 www.youtube.com 或 video.google.com找到精彩无比，激动人心的片段。
The Last Lecture goes beyond the now-famous lecture to inspire us all to live each day of our lives with purpose and joy
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
—Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.