After a lifetime of mistakes…can Kassandra ever be forgiven? New York City, 1841 When Reverend Joseph plucks a gravely wounded child from the mean streets of Manhattan’s rough Five Points District, he intends to give her a real home. And though Kassandra flourishes in the preacher’s house, learning Bible verses at his knee and going to school, as a young teenager she makes the first of many devastating decisions, running away from the only haven she’s ever known. What follows is a waking nightmare: life in a tiny room above a brothel, the loss of a child, a lover’s rejection, and finally, life as a prostitute. As circumstances lead her further and further from the reverend’s secure home, an ashamed Kassandra is certain that neither God, nor Joseph, will ever forgive her. Feeling as though she has nothing left to lose and nowhere to go, Kassandra leaves behind her hopes of redemption and heads west to California, where she is transformed into the woman known as Sadie. Unfortunately, nothing in her life is pointing to a happy ending, and Sadie is forced to grapple with the question: Once you’ve passed the point of no return, can you ever go back?

A character-driven novel about the unlikely friendship between a 10-year-old boy and an elderly woman. The old woman badgers the boy into taking her sailing, but when the weather turns bad, it becomes a wild sail. It becomes the last trip before she goes into the hospital where she dies: but not before the two of them share memories of their last sail together. Hazel helps build the boy's confidence during a tough time in his home life. Both moving and joyful, Into the Wind is a poignant story about loss and love in a boy's life, and the surprising and sustaining bonds that can grow between the old and young.

The subtropical lifestyle of this vibrant river city, with the rush and tear left behind when two young hopefuls headed north in an old blue panel van, was now ours. Our children could grow in our adopted city and state — beautiful one day, perfect the next. We popped the cork of our sparkling white wine. The clock ticked towards midnight. With one little Croweater and two little Sandgropers snug in their Sunshine State beds, we clinked our glasses. Our future looked bright — the year, 1989.

Whitehead applies his razor-sharp thinking to the question, "How did our culture get into the dismal moral and cultural state it is in today?" He provides a fascinating sketch of 20th-century culture, clearly showing how the artists and culture-makers influenced the philosophical and moral climate of the world today. Skillfully synthesizing major philosophical movements of the century, he places cultural heroes into a larger context of truth and morality.