The following books have been added to shelves at the Petersburg Public Library, 201 W. Washington St.


"Tony’s Wife" by Adriana Trigiani


"Mycroft and Sherlock: by Kareem Abdul-Jabaar

In this sequel to Abdul-Jabaar’s “Mycroft”, it is 1872, and a series of gruesome murders is the talk of London. Mycroft Holmes — now twenty-six and a force to be reckoned with at the War Office -- has no interest in the killings; however his brother Sherlock has developed a distasteful fascination for the macabre to the detriment of his studies, much to Mycroft's frustration.  When a ship carrying cargo belonging to Mycroft's best friend Cyrus Douglas runs aground, Mycroft persuades Sherlock to serve as a tutor at the orphanage that Douglas runs as a charity, so that Douglas might travel to see what can be salvaged. Sherlock finds himself at home among the street urchins, and when a boy dies of a suspected drug overdose, he decides to investigate, following a trail of strange subterranean symbols to the squalid opium dens of the London docks. Meanwhile a meeting with a beautiful Chinese woman leads Mycroft to the very same mystery, one that forces him to examine the underbelly of the opium trade that is enriching his beloved Britain's coffers.


"Becoming" by Michelle Obama


"The Golden Age of Piracy: The Rise, Fall and Enduring Popularity of Pirates" by David Head

Twelve scholars of piracy show why pirates thrived in the New World seas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century empires, how pirates operated their plundering ventures, how governments battled piracy, and when and why piracy declined. The essays presented take the study of piracy, which can easily lapse into rousing, romanticized stories, to new heights of rigor and insight. The Golden Age of Piracy also delves into the enduring status of pirates as pop culture icons. Audiences have devoured stories about cutthroats such as Blackbeard and Henry Morgan from the time that pirates sailed the sea. By looking at the ideas of gender and sexuality surrounding pirate stories, the fad for hunting pirate treasure, and the construction of pirate myths, the book’s contributors tell a new story about the dangerous men, and a few dangerous women, who terrorized the high seas.

Dana Cragg is Adult Services Librarian for the Petersburg Public Library System. She writes a regular column reviewing some of the latest books added to library shelves.