New Releases by Robert James Waller

The author of the blockbuster The Bridges of Madison County blends passion and adventure in the story of an American novelist in Mexico and his young lover, who take a trip with a killer.

You may know Robert James Waller as the man who brought the world to Iowa''s storied covered bridges. What you may not realize is that before and since becoming an internationally acclaimed novelist, Waller has grappled with a very real puzzle: How can an individual, a group, and/or a society cut through the confusion of everyday life to successfully navigate its pitfalls and traps? Through intense reflection, shrewd reasoning, and not a little trial and error, the reclusive author has developed a unique and inventive paradigm for thinking clearly and logically. In The Summer Nights Never End Until they Do, Waller shares a methodology can be applied to everything from governmental gaffs and immigration reform to losing weight and financial freedom. Like so many things that make sense, Waller''s words are complex in their simplicity, turn from the madness of short-term, quick fixes and toward time-tested, reasonable goals. The devil is in the details. So, too, are the answers.

The steady tick of an aged Regulator wall clock and the squeak of an overhead fan turning slowly are soft but insistent, counting down the night, while the high desert thrums like a half-remembered Victrola song. The sounds are below the consciousness of Winchell Dear, an old-time gambler, a Texas poker player on the southern circuit, as he waits for something . . . something vague that his life of chance tells him is evil and moving his way. He has gassed and oiled the Cadillac and adjusts the pistol in his right boot, then plays one of the six fiddle tunes he knows, thinking back to his good days with Lucinda Miller. Alone, he waits in his remote ranch house, while, just outside, an acquaintance named Luther hunts, unblinking and of nervous temperament and moving through yellow primrose bending in the night wind. In Diablo Canyon, a distant part of Winchell Dear’s ranch, Peter Long Grass squats by a campfire, contemplating the profile he saw moving along the ridge of Guapa Mountain an hour ago, thinking about the gambler’s housekeeper, Sonia Dominguez, about the small, quiet world he has fashioned far from civilization and what undefined presence might now be threatening it. He gathers his tools and begins to run across the desert floor. And boring toward all of them is a cream-colored Lincoln Continental with two men aboard. Traveling from Los Angeles on a mission they’ve been given, they are professionals, cool and implacable at the start, but becoming steadily more confused by the strange landscape they are passing through. Forty minutes from their task, they ready themselves, while a kitchen wall clock ticks its way through the long night of Winchell Dear. The Long Night of Winchell Dear finds master storyteller Robert James Waller at his best as he takes us through the wind and dust of the high desert mountains, into the shadowy world of high-stakes poker fought in the back rooms of Amarillo and Little Rock, and headlong toward the book’s stunning finale of chaotic terror, where an unexpected hero emerges.

Carlisle McMillan, a traveler and master carpenter seeking a place of quiet amid the grinding roar of progress. Near Wolf Butte, a strange and apparently haunted monolith, he finds his quiet, or so he believes, and begins rebuilding a decrepit house as a tribute to the gruff old man who taught him a carpenter''s skills, rebuilding his life at the same time. He finds two very different, independent women: Gally Deveraux, who works at a diner in Salamander and longs for something more than she is, and Susanna Benteen, beautiful and enigmatic, who was drawn to Salamander for mysterious reasons of her own, a woman the town has labeled a witch. The women and his carpenter''s trade and an old Indian known as Flute Player bring Carlisle a sense of contentment for a while. But his quiet is shattered as bulldozer treads begin to turn and the Yerkes County War commences. Run or stand your ground, that is Carlisle''s dilemma, Gally on one side, Susanna on the other.

Sixteen years after Robert Kincaid and Francesca Johnson have agreed that their swift, passionate and deep love affair must end, they are still thinking of each other. Robert has never married, but continued his nomadic life as a photographer. He feels it is time to re-visit Roseman Bridge just to lay to rest his lingering love - not to SEE her as he doesn''t wish to disturb the life she chose when she decided to stay with her husband and children. Francesca''s husband has recently died and the children long left home. She takes her daily walk to Roseman and sees the back of a Landrover leaving - her heart stops for a second as she FEELS it was Robert. But he''s gone. Meanwhile, teenager Carlisle feels it is time he looked for his biological father. His mother has never made a secret of the fact he was the result of a one-night stand. From the few details he has he tracks down Robert and introduces himself. Startled, but quite happy to have been a father, they have a few days to get to know each other - before Robert dies of a heart attack. Francesca receives a letter informing her of his death...

The author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Bridges of Madison County once again brings characters and situations with his special blend of lyricism and magic. This is a bittersweet story about two good people who discover that true love, when it comes, is rarely fair, or right--or without pain.

From Robert James Waller comes a wonderful collection of 19 essays--all of them as romantic, reflective, and timeless as readers have come to expect from the author of The Bridges of Madison County--a celebration of life and loss, of what things still can be.

Fall in love with one of the bestselling novels of all time -- the legendary love story that became a beloved film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. If you''ve ever experienced the one true love of your life, a love that for some reason could never be, you will understand why readers all over the world are so moved by this small, unknown first novel that they became a publishing phenomenon and #1 bestseller. The story of Robert Kincaid, the photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for the fulfillment of a girlhood dream, The Bridges of Madison County gives voice to the longings of men and women everywhere -- and shows us what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never the same again.

Poignant novel of love and life and the ties of past secrets. By the author of ''The bridges of Madison county'' and ''Slow waltz in Cedar Bend''.

Un vrai roman d''amour, d''une sensualité subtile et torride. Emportés par une attirance physique irrésistible, un homme et une femme dans la force de l''âge vont s''aimer avec toute la fougue de la jeunesse retrouvée. Un rêve, une passion qui hante chacun de nous.

A passionate love story about a man and a woman and the four days they spend together that will change their lives. Author''s first novel.

Iowan Waller''s (management, U. of Northern Iowa) second collection of essays and stories (the first was Just beyond the firelight, Iowa State U. Press) continues his personal quest, finding the extraordinary in the ordinary of animals, places, people, as well as politics, economics and ecology. Some of the essays have been previously published. Paper edition (unseen), $11.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR