Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story, was a non-fiction novel written by John Caldwell Holt

John Caldwell Holt

John Caldwell Holt was an American author and educator, a proponent of homeschooling, and a pioneer in youth rights theory.-Biography:...

 (1923-1985), an educator and author. The book is written in an autobiographical

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 format, telling about his experience of learning to play the (cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

), as an adult. The book was published in 1979, six years before his death.

Never Too Late

In "Never Too Late", John explores how the abilities of people are limited, but "not as limited as we think". The profoundness of a forty-year-old taking up an instrument, learning it, and playing it very well was something not really heard of at the time. He explains that even though "there are still limits to what can be accomplished, they are farther away than we imagine."
At first, John has troubles reading the music off the pages, keeping time and tuning his cello.