>JIM THE BOY Tony Earley Using words like "daggummit," the author, a North Carolina native, gives heaps of Dixie detail to this coming-of-age novel set in the Tar Heel State. (Little, Brown, $23.95)
ROSA PARKS Douglas Brinkley
The defiant act of a not-so-demure seamstress—refusing to give up her bus seat for a white man in 1955—is at the heart of this thorough and exemplary biography. (Viking, $19.95)
THE FIRST PAPER GIRL IN RED OAK, IOWA Elizabeth Stuckey-French The Florida-based author shows a flair for off-the-wall detail in a short-story collection peopled with motley Midwesterners. (Doubleday, $22)
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