AbeBooks: Self-Help

Editor's Pick

Life Plain and Simple

Lisa Rose

Lisa Rose is a writer and painter living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Her new book, Life Plain and Simple is small but perfectly formed for those people looking for simple guidance in their increasingly complex existences. The thinking behind the book is the reader can open any page and find a simple thought surrounded by space. The messages include “There are no excuses, there are the things you do, and the things you don’t do” and “Nothing limits you but you.” These plain and simple messages are designed to illustrate that life isn’t nearly as complicated as we think and that, with a little thought, we can start down the road to great things. Perhaps the message closest to our heart is “Write it down to make it real.” Indeed.

Find Life Plain and Simple

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"—wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Find The Last Lecture