Title: The Last Lecture
Author: Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow
Genre: Memoir, Non-Fiction

Like just about everyone else on the internet I watched the video of Randy Pausch’s last lecture at Carnegie Mellon. It was funny and sad and all the other things you expect a lecture given by a really, really smart man who is dying would be. Though I’m not normally one to buy tearjerker “how to live your life” books by self-help gurus this guy is something different. He’s an earnest nerd. I like earnest nerds and I in fact am an earnest nerd. I found his last lecture more than a little entertaining and inspirational so I bought the book. I found it too to be more than a little entertaining and inspirational.

He tells a good story and he lives his life well and it seems like he did so well before his terminal diagnosis. I picked up a few things from his lecture and book that I’d like to carry with me to help me live my life a little bit better.

Title: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Author: Michael Chabon
Genre: Fiction

I can’t recall the last book I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I’ve always like Chabon’s work so it’s not really surprising that I love this book. But this book is a hard boiled detective story, think Raymond Chandler. Those kind of detective stories are not usually my bag at all but this one so was. I couldn’t wait to get back to the book every single time I had to put it down. I’ve been sick the past couple days and this book was my comfort. When my brain was too fuzzy to do actual work I’d hunker down with this book and a box of Kleenex and start to feel a little better. Seriously, I just loved this book.

Loving this book so much has inspired me to re-read all of Chabon’s novels. I read The Final Solution when it came out but his other YA novel didn’t appeal to me nor did the serialized novel from last year but maybe I should give them a shot. I’m thinking I’ll go in chronological order and start with The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

Title: Persepolis
Author: Marjane Satrapi
Genre:Memoir, Graphic Novel

I’d been meaning to read this ever since it was first released years ago but I just never did. Then B picked it up at the bookstore a few weeks ago and she breezed right through it, cooing over it the whole time.

It was a very enjoyable, quick read. It’s the story of a childhood during the Iranian revolutions of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The events in Iran at the time are something I know woefully little about so it was good to pick up a little bit of historical detail and context as well as experiencing this one girl’s childhood and her story.