Book by Professor and Columnist Inspires ABC-TV Special on April 9

By: E&P Staff Diane Sawyer will host an ABC-TV special April 9 tied to "The Last Lecture" book.

The April 8-published book, for which Hyperion reportedly paid a $6.7-million advance, is by Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch "with" Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow.

Pausch, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, gave a moving and upbeat "last lecture" last September that stirred a vast amount of interest. A big reason why Pausch's comments quickly spread worldwide was a column Zaslow wrote about the talk that was accompanied by a video.

Zaslow subsequently took a leave of absence from the Journal to work on what turned out to be a 206-page book.

The TV special is scheduled to air at 10 p.m. eastern time.

As E&P reported on March 28, the book is also the subject of a cover story in this Sunday's issue of Parade magazine.