Jeffrey Zaslow: ‘The Last Lecture’ Author and Inspiring Wall Street Journalist Dies in Car Accident

Jeffrey Zaslow, the best-selling author and Wall Street Journal columnist died Feb. 10 in a car crash in northern Michigan.

Jeffrey Zaslow, 53, was returning home to Detroit from a book reading in northern Michigan when he lost control of his car on a snow-covered road and collided with a semi-trailer truck, said the police.

According to the Antrim County Sheriff's Department, it happened around 9 a.m. on M-32 near Elmira.

Amy Chozick, Corporate media reporter for The New York Times was quoted as saying, I worked with Jeff at The Wall Street Journal, and just as he had millions of readers who found inspiration and comfort in his books, articles and columns, there were legions of young journalists who hoped that one day they could be just a little bit like him.

Robert H. Christie, SVP Corporate Communications in The New York Times Company, tweeted, A very, very kind man, Jeffrey Zaslow, Author and Journalistic Role Model, Dies at 53.

Zaslow was an inspiring writer and had a special kind of skill for detailing news that riveted the reader. In The Last Lecture his character Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor with terminal cancer, delivers an inspirational lecture that captivated all who read the book.

Another book, 'The Girls from Ames,' about 11 childhood friends in Iowa and the ties that bind them as they grow older, also became a bestseller.

Last year, he documented the saga of Gabby Giffords the Arizona congresswoman, as she recovered from a bullet wound to the brain after a gunman shot her and killed six others. He also co-authored 'Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope' along with Giffords' husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly.

His book 'The Magic Room,' tells the story of women about to enter into matrimony. Becker's Bridal in Fowler, Michigan, is a bridal store with nearly 2,500 dresses. Each bride who enters the Magic Room at the bridal store has a story to tell about her expectations of romance, fidelity, marriage and tradition. The store is owned by the same family for four generations has been witness to America's views on marriage as an institution and how those views have undergone transformation in all these years.

In 'Magic Room,' Zaslow shares experiences that are joyful, heartbreaking and and full of insight from the perspective of the lessons that a parent, especially the mother, passes on to the daughters.

Zaslow was married to Sherry Margolis, a Fox 2 Detroit news anchor in 1987 and they had three daughters, Jordan, 22, Alex, 20, and Eden, 16, and it was the love he has for his own three daughters that inspired him to write the 'The Magic Room.'

Britt Alisse Carlson, NBA Executive, tweeted Today the world lost a gifted writer and beautiful soul.