Old Songs in a New Café: Selected Essays [Hardcover]

Robert James Waller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

Nineteen romantic, reflective essays by the author of The Bridges of Madison County celebrate life, explore loss, and meditate on the complex nature of time--past, present, and future. (Literature).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Waller, whose novels The Bridges of Madison County and Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend are current bestsellers, here offers 19 essays previously published in the Des Moines Register between 1983 and 1989 and in two book collections. As he acknowledges, some of the pieces do not warrant reprinting; others, however, convey a quiet humor and sensitivity that his fiction readers will enjoy. Among these are a memoir of a beloved cat, accounts of Waller's teenaged experiences with basketball and billiards, reflections on turning 50 and an engaging tribute to Charlie Uban, who flew cargo planes during WW II. Waller--a professor of management at the University of Northern Iowa, a bar musician and a photographer--exhibits a refreshing modesty in many of these pieces.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Previously published in two separate volumes, these 19 essays by best-selling author Waller (The Bridges of Madison County, LJ 3/1/92) provide various, intimate, and stimulating reflections. Among them are his expressions of love for a newly grown daughter ("Excavating Rachael's Room"), a loving tribute to his wife of over 30 years ("Slow Waltz for Georgia Ann"), portraits of personal and often irregular heroes ("The Boy from the Burma Hump"), and multiple celebrations of things that he loves. These include music, travel, basketball, nature, and, above all, romance. In the revelation of his loves, one0 discovers the essential Waller, a man who writes both to find and to express himself. In sharing his own strong passions, Waller demonstrates his gift for expressing feelings that all people have but do not think that others have. Public libraries will want this.
--Marie L. Lally, Alabama Sch. of Mathematics & Science, Mobile
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 219 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Pr; 1st Printing edition (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786202335
• ISBN-13: 978-0786202331
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,386,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What an amazing biography!, March 12, 2002

By 

J. Huntington (Jeonju, South Korea) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Old Songs in a New Cafe: Selected Essays (Hardcover)

Reads a tremendous lot like Robert Fulghum, but beyond that...

Through essays, the presumably all true story of a man who lived as if he was born with a detailed, incredibly accurate set of instructions and near-Godlike wisdom. Learns pool and billiards as an eleven-year-old kid and beats the town champ. Takes up basketball, making his high school team as a freshman and becoming a good major-school college player. Starts a loving marriage in college that remains super-strong over 25 years later. Plays guitar, and with his small combo is chosen for national TV appearances with Charles Kuralt and Robert Kennedy. Despite all his independent thought, establishes a solid - actually distinguished - career in academia. And, in the decade after this book, writes a novel that may have sold more copies - and tickets to its subsequent movie - than ANY in the 1990's!

And guess what? NONE of this - not even a SCRAP of it, according to the essays - ever misled him or cost him anything! He didn't drop out of school to hustle pool, ignore academics to over-concentrate on basketball, discover his wife who he chose at age 22 didn't fit his ever-evolving life at age 50, go for a low-paying full-time music career, QUIT music altogether and lose the fun of playing recreationally, or constrict his thinking by getting it in line with the PC work setting of a university.

Not only did he seem to be always doing the exact right thing at the right time, he avoided every trap there was.

Amazing! Have never seen a life so comprehensively superb since Jennifer Beals' in Flashdance, and she was FICTIONAL!

So, Robert James, we have two ways to interpret you. You can be one of the most premier renaissance men of our time, or an archly annoying "perfect" person akin to Martha Stewart. So, my challenge to you is - write an essay, telling us in detail, how in at least one instance YOU, not circumstances, luck or the people around you - have FAILED. Have you done it? Can you do it?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful, May 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Old Songs in a New Cafe: Selected Essays (Hardcover)

I have read this book several times, love to take it on vacation. These stories are wonderful, heartfelt. A nice reminder of my own childhood growing up in Indiana. We have dusty roads, and favorite pets, and enjoy the quite life here too. It's beautifully written by a wonderful Author. Sure wish he would write more!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The wind beneath Robert Kincaid's wings..., April 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Old Songs in a New Cafe: Selected Essays (Paperback)

If you ever read "The Bridges of Madison County" and wondered how could someone create such an amazing story,or how it would be wonderful to know a person like Kincaid - You will be excited to find out that Robert Kincaid is actually Robert James Waller himself! In this autobiographic book Waller lets us all take a glimpse into his personal life and discover what a special person he is.You'll learn about his childhood,growing up adventures,family and hobbies. And you'll see Kincaid is not just an imaginary figure but a side of Waller's personality. I was fascinated to learn so much about Waller and his "reclusive life of words and imagination".