Patch Picks: Top Shelf Choices

Local librarian Chuck Wike lets Montrose Patch in on some of the library's top offerings. You can find all of these selections at the .

1.  Freedom by Jonathan Franzen touts the "Oprah's Book Club" seal and is a slice of mid-Western fiction that centers around family drama in St. Paul, Minnesota.

2. Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a defiant memoir that pits stereotypical "Chinese" parenting against "Western" parenting. At times funny, at times dramatic, at times incendiary, Wike reports this non-fiction account of Chua's take on parenting is going like hotcakes at the library.

3.  In Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Shiff takes on the same subject William Shakespeare once tackled: the life of the unforgettable Egyptian queen. Publisher's Weekly writes that Shiff "dusts away history's spider webs, romance's distortions, and sexism's corruptions to reveal the true (or at least the truest possible) portrait of Cleopatra."

4. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand is a non-fiction novel chronicling the life of Louie Zamperini, a rebel youth, Olympian and military hero.

5. Finally, don't forget The Sentry, Robert Crais' thrilling, crime-drama that will leave readers guessing 'til the last page! It features complex characters and an intricate plot that is fodder for thought.