The Last Lecture

Last year a student told me I have to read The Last Lecture, it's the best book she's ever read. I'd never heard of it. But she's a thoughtful, good kid, and she was so excited about this book. So I put it on hold at the library, it came, and then it sat on my shelf of library books unread for a long time. I renewed it several times. But it's little, so finally I just read it.

Apparently it's huge; a quote from the book, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," is, according to Amazon, the seventh most highlighted quote of all time on Kindle.

The student knew nothing about my exciting health stuff, so she didn't mention that this is a book written by a dying man. But yeah.

It's also a book about learning to be humble, about living your life as fully as you can in the time you have (something that feels more urgent when you know you don't have a lot of time, but something that is good for all of us to do anyway), a book about giving people a chance to "surprise and impress you," and just generally a book about wisdom. Wisdom gained, that most people don't get the chance to pass on. This guy has--had--a lot of wisdom, too. Full of short chapters with pithy titles like "A Bad Apology Is Worse Than No Apology," and "Don't Obsess Over What Other People Think," this is a short book worth reading, filled with lessons one man wanted to pass along. He was a smart guy paying close attention. Note that I did go through Erma Bombeck and Andy Rooney phases (when I was reading every book in my house), but if you did too, then this one might be for you.