MANILA, Philippines - Everyone has heard about it, this true story of the respected professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and then delivering a heartfelt lecture about achieving dreams immortalized on the Internet. Everyone called it the Last Lecture, and the dying Randolph Frederick ?Randy? Pausch, PhD, 47, spoke his heart out.

This book isn?t the lecture. More accurately, it is about the lecture and what led to it.

Pausch wrote ?The Last Lecture? (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2008, 206 pages) with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow, not merely rehashing the lecture itself (which can be found easily on YouTube) but instead tracing the events that led to it and, by extension, taking the lecture further.

Titled ?Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,? Pasuch?s lecture was delivered on Sept. 18, 2007 at CMU to an audience of 400, including his wife Jai. The lecture is broken up into easily digestible parts, annotated by computer science professor Pausch in detailed fashion.

?Time is all you have,? Pausch explains. ?And you may find one day that you have less than you think.?

One might approach the entire Last Lecture phenomenon with a cynical vibe, but it becomes clear the actual lecture was just the beginning. Pausch?s story goes way beyond what was said that day, and it?s all here.

In the process of explaining how he got to be where he is now, Pausch recollects how his parents nurtured his imagination by letting him paint his room any way he wanted, how they injected the right values by example.

?Give yourself permission to dream,? he counsels. ?Fuel your kids? dreams, too. Once in a while, that might mean letting them stay up past their bedtimes.?

Odyssey

Pausch?s odyssey before he got sick is astounding. Rejected many times, he persevered and always had fun, seriously. He managed to achieve childhood dreams others would classify as pipe dreams, among them floating in zero gravity, becoming a Disney Imagineer and even writing for his beloved World Book Encyclopedia.

Along the way, he became a passionate teacher, married Jai, had three children?Dylan, Logan and Chloe?and then he received the dreadful diagnosis.

Yet ?Lecture? shows how Pausch coped with that fearful development because of how he had always lived his life.

?Lecture? has its sad moments but avoids becoming sappy. Pausch keeps everything moving at a brisk pace, with the vignettes strung together with prosaic titles that hold no indication of just how interesting the vignettes are.

The ?Captain Kirk? one is pretty good. It also has some very practical tips such as leaving thank-you notes, not being afraid to ask, and so on.

What ?Lecture? recalls is Mitch Albom?s ?Tuesdays with Morrie??if the book had been written by Morrie?as well as the 1993 movie ?My Life.? But what the book resembles the most is Robert Fulghum?s ?All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,? updated for a new generation of readers.

For teachers

The book would be most affecting for teachers, as Pausch clearly intends to pass on the unorthodox lessons he has learned in the classroom.

?My students knew: It?s not just whether you win or lose,? he says. ?It?s how you play the cliché.?

Even equipped with his learned optimism, Pausch clearly struggles with the idea of not being there for his children, but he never lets it stop him. Readers will certainly feel for this brave, brainy professor who is doing his best, to pull out another true cliché, to live and just survive.

?Even if the scan results are bad today,? he tells Jai, ?I just want you to know that it feels great to be alive, and to be here today, alive with you.?

That sentiment sparkles in the knowledge that Pausch died last July 28 at age 47. He had lived almost two years after his initial diagnosis.

For all that, the book is Pausch?s gift to his family, as a father and husband who will continue loving no matter what. ?The Last Lecture? is the remarkable Randy Pausch?s lasting gift to the world, a teacher who will never stop teaching, and, in his own words, ?a scientist who sees inspiration as the ultimate tool for doing good.?

Available in paperback from National Book Store.