'VISIONARY WOMEN: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World,' by Andrea Barnet. The author of "All-Night Party" offers four brief portraits of women who revolutionized the fields of environmentalism, urban planning, primatology and food during the 1960s, "sounding the alarm on the culture's increasingly 'reckless assault' on the environment." (Ecco, $28.99)
'ANATOMY OF A MIRACLE,' by Jonathan Miles. In his new novel, the author of "Dear American Airlines" and "Want Not" has a paraplegic Afghanistan veteran on the Gulf coast of Mississippi suddenly able to rise out of his wheelchair and walk _ a "miracle" that excites the interest of a reality TV show producer, a VA doctor, droves of pilgrims and the Vatican. (Hogarth, $27)
'THE PARKING LOT ATTENDANT,' by Nafkote Tamirat. This debut novel is narrated by a teenage Ethiopian-American girl in Boston who becomes infatuated with Ayale, the parking lot attendant of the title _ a charismatic hustler whose package delivery scheme would appear to part of a criminal side business. The narrator's father _ and the reader _ worry that she's in over her head. (Henry Holt, $26)
