Between defeat by Trevor Berbick in December 1981 and lighting the Olympic flame in Atlanta in July 1996, Muhammad Ali spent the 15 most turbulent years of his life traversing the globe, seeking a higher purpose. Depending on the day, the retired champion could be a diplomat trying to liberate hostages in the Middle East, a salesman flogging cookies and cologne across America, or an amateur magician performing sleights of hand everywhere from prison yards to school halls to Valentino fashion shows. Sometimes hilarious, often terribly poignant, this kaleidoscopic account of the most bizarre episodes in his epic life chronicles Ali preaching Islam, causing havoc and touching lives from Beijing to Birmingham, Detroit to Damascus, Khartoum to the Khyber Pass. One minute hanging with Donald Trump, the next with Nelson Mandela, even as his own body and mind battled the onset of Parkinson's Syndrome, here are so many previously untold stories about 'The Greatest' treating statesmen and strangers, popes and paupers just the same.

Barbed Wire University tells the extraordinary tale of Winston Churchill's internment of some of the most gifted Jewish refugee writers, professors, artists and painters of their generation in a camp on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. These were men who had fled Hitler's Germany, found refuge in Britain and then in the hysteria of 1940 were held in captivity as a perceived security threat. They turned the camp-Camp Hutchinson-into a school, concert hall and artistic community. Using memoirs and diaries, some of which have only recently become available in archives, Dave Hannigan pieces together a richly detailed account of what these remarkable men did during their time in captivity. This is a forgotten corner of World War II and the way these men constructed a Bohemian idyll in the middle of the Irish Sea, their freedom taken from them, is an extraordinary tale of grit and creativity.

Sam Healy has been watching his three older brothers starring for the Rocky Road Stallions since he was knee-high to a soccer ball. Now, he's finally old enough to try out for the U-10 travel team, Sam makes an unfortunate and startling discovery. He's small for his age. Very small. All the other fourth-graders on the field are bigger, faster and stronger. Can his soccer dreams still come true? Why do his brothers never stop making fun of his size? And just how far will he go in his efforts to grow taller?