Hank Greenberg was coming off a stellar season where he’d hit 40 home runs and 184 RBIs, becoming only the 13th player to ever hit 40 or more homers. From his first day in the big leagues, the New York-born Greenberg had dealt with persecution for being Jewish; he always did his best to shut the noise out and concentrate on baseball. But in 1938, that would be more difficult than he ever could have imagined. Adolf Hitler had taken direct control of Germany’s military in February 1938. He then began his methodic takeover of all neighboring countries, spreading Nazism and the early stages of World War II and the Holocaust. Ron Kaplan’s latest book chronicles the events of 1938, both on the baseball diamond and the streets of Europe.

The winner of more than 90 championships, including four Masters Tournaments, Arnold Palmer was a legend in 20th-century sports: a supremely gifted competitor beloved for his powerful hitting, his nerve on the greens, and his great rapport with fans. Perhaps above all others, Palmer was the reason golf’s popularity exploded, as the King of the links helped define golf’s golden age along with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. In addition to his talent on the golf course, Palmer was a brilliant entrepreneur off it, and one of the first sportsmen to create his own successful marketing brand. But beyond his business acumen, Palmer was always a larger-than-life character, and ARNIE recounts a host of unforgettable anecdotes from a long life in the spotlight.

Ex-FBI agent Brigid Quinn, now happily settled in Tucson, doesn’t visit her family in Florida much. But her former partner on the force, Laura Coleman --- a woman whose life she has saved and who has saved her life in turn --- is living there now. So when Laura calls about a case that is not going well, Brigid doesn’t hesitate to get on a plane. On leave from the Bureau, Laura has been volunteering for a legal group trying to prove the innocence of a man who is on death row for killing his family. Laura is firmly convinced that he didn’t do it, while Brigid isn’t so sure. But the date for his execution is coming up so quickly that they’ll have to act fast to find any evidence that may absolve him before it’s too late.

AL-TOUNSI tells the behind-the-scenes story of U.S. Supreme Court Justices as they consider a landmark case involving the rights of detainees held in an overseas U.S. military base. Inspired by a true case from 2008 addressing Guantanamo Bay, the fictional lawsuit of Al-Tounsi v. Shaw pits Majid Al-Tounsi, an Egyptian prisoner, against the President of the United States. It challenges U.S. laws that apply to non-citizens under wartime circumstances and the extent of executive power. As the controversial case maneuvers through the minds and hands of the Justices, the novel explores in detail how the personal life dramas, career rivalries and political sympathies of these judicial titans blend with their philosophies to create the most important legal decisions of our time.

The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. These four stories, along with 14 other pieces, have one thing in common: They're short, sharp and to the point --- science fiction in miniature, with none of the stories longer than 2,300 words. But in that short space exist entire universes, absurd situations, and the sort of futuristic humor that propelled Scalzi to a Hugo with his novel, REDSHIRTS.

As a young partner at Dunn & Sullivan, one of New York’s most prestigious law firms, Carney Blake has represented dozens of high-profile clients. But being a pawn of Big Law often means defending the corporate dirt bags of the world --- the spillers, the drillers and the killers. When Carney is suddenly asked by his firm’s chairman to represent the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit --- and not, as usual, the corporate bad guys --- he warily accepts. As Carney digs deeper into the case, he uncovers corruption and maliciously orchestrated schemes that go straight to the top of Dunn & Sullivan --- along with the true motives behind his placement on the case.

The restaurant industry in Italy is as tough, cutthroat and unforgiving as anywhere else in the world --- sometimes even colluding with the shady world of organized crime. Leonardo Lucarelli is a professional chef who has been roaming Italy opening restaurants, training underpaid, sometimes hopelessly incompetent sous-chefs, courting waitresses, working long hours, riding high on drugs, and cursing a culinary passion he inherited as a teenager from his hippie father. In MINCEMEAT, Lucarelli teaches us that even among rogues and misfits, there is a moral code in the kitchen that must, above all else, always be upheld.

It is 1801, and President Thomas Jefferson has assembled a deep-water navy to fight the growing threat of piracy, as American civilians are regularly kidnapped by Islamist brigands and held for ransom, enslaved or killed, all at their captors’ whim. The Berber States of North Africa, especially Tripoli, claimed their faith gave them the right to pillage anyone who did not submit to their religion. Young Bliven Putnam, great-nephew of Revolutionary War hero Israel Putnam, is bound for the Mediterranean and a desperate battle with the pirate ship Tripoli. He later returns under legendary Commodore Edward Preble on the Constitution, and marches across the Libyan desert with General Eaton to assault Derna --- discovering that the lessons he learns about war, and life, are not what he expected.

What happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe? Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, and a corruption case crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business as Greg Myers; he claims to know of a judge who was secretly involved with the construction of a large casino on Native American land. Greg’s only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. Lacy immediately suspects this case could be dangerous --- but it also could turn out to be deadly.

THE RAIN IN PORTUGAL --- a title that admits he’s not much of a rhymer --- sheds Billy Collins’ ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range from the whimsical --- “the dogs of Minneapolis… / have no idea they’re in Minneapolis” --- to the elegiac in a reaction to the death of Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, here Collins contemplates a weather vane, a still life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head.