Walking on the Moon

This is a short book taken from and extending Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture at CMU.  Pausch died of pancreatic cancer and gave this talk as a farewell to his colleagues and family.  The lecture was very well received and turned into this book.

It’s not a very long book, but it’s too long. The first half of it gives background on how the lecture came to be and gives something of an outline of how it was given.  This is all great stuff.  It’s honest and moving.  Pausch knows he can be a stereotypical professor – egotistical, over-analytic, etc. – and still lets that voice be heard.  Behind that is someone doing everything they can to come to terms with their imminent death.

Then the padding starts.  By the time Pausch is giving out productivity hints, it’s time to put up the book.

The first half (and one assumes the lecture on-line) is well worth checking out.  Stop there.