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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.

With its rich literary tradition, the Midwest provides a wealth of opportunities for bibliophiles to retrace the steps of their favorite writers and characters. The Booklover's Guide to the Midwest is a treasure map in book form, pointing the way to the heartland's most interesting literary sites. Walk down the actual Main Street that Sinclair Lewis described in his classic novel, or among the gravestones that inspired Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. See Laura Ingalls Wilder's ''little House in the Big Woods'' and get lost in the very same cave that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn explored. Visit Petoskey, Michigan, the setting of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories. Other poets and writers put readers in touch with pond life, sand dune architecture, Native Americans, and the great expanse of the prairie. Descriptions of each states' sites are arranged so that travelers can drive or walk from place to place with ease.

Offers a portrait of the ups and downs in one couple's relationship and the struggle of one elderly man to be free

With over 10 million copies sold, bestselling author Robert James Waller returns with the haunting, evocative story of a small town, a beautiful and mysterious woman, and the man forever changed by both. The wild places are where no one is looking anymore. Out there on the high plains, among the Sioux reservations and the silent buttes, among the small towns dying and the people with them, you can hear the wind. And on the back of the wind is the sound of an old accordion—tangos—mingling with the lonely thump of a single drum in the nighttime and a far-off warrior’s cry. On the back of the wind is the smell of worn saddle leather and sawdust, of sandalwood, and smoke from ancient ceremonial fires. To this, to a town called Salamander, comes 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. Robert James Waller’s fully imagined characters become people we know and care for deeply. High Plains Tango is the hauntingly lyrical story of a small town in the middle of nowhere, a town that forever changed—and was forever changed by—one man.