The Last Lecture
Is this the next megaselling book? The Last Lecture by Professor Randy Pausch. USA Today has an extensive article about this just-released book.
Pausch, a professor at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, is dying of cancer but - thanks to Youtube - he’s already a folk hero to many.
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, 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 Jeffrey 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.
