Monroe Free Library

In the midst of his crumbling relationship, a radio show host begins speaking to his biggest fan, a young boy, via the telephone. But when questions of the boy's identity comes up, the host's life is thrown into chaos.

10-year-old baseball fan Yankee Irving is always the last one picked for sandlot baseball games. But when Babe Ruth's prized bat is stolen during the 1932 World Series, Yankee steps up to the plate to help retrieve it for his beloved idol. He embarks on a wild cross-country journey that teaches him the stuff of real heroes, and along the way, Yankee learns that importance of perseverance and the true meaning of friendship.

"In the vein of You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) and Black Nerd Problems, this witty, incisive essay collection from New York Times critic at large Maya Phillips explores race, religion, sexuality, and more through the lens of her favorite pop culture fandoms. From the moment Maya Phillips saw the opening scroll of Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, her childhood changed forever. Her formative years were spent loving not just...

"A suspenseful, transporting literary thriller about a British novelist who heads to Venice after a public breakdown, by Christine Mangan, the bestselling author of Tangerine. It's 1966 and Frankie Croy needs a break. Having achieved success with her debut bestseller, she's been trying desperately to live up to the high expectations of her editor and fans, only to fall short with each new book. When she receives a possible career-ending review and...

"Nina and Sebastian, superfans who bonded over their favorite television show until both the show and their friendship was abruptly canceled, drift apart but meet five years later on the set of the show's reboot in Hollywood"-- All through college Nina and Sebastian were sentence-finishing, secret-sharing BFFs, and absolute super fans of Castles of Rust and Bone. When Castles' season finale turned into the unceremoniously axed show's awkward farewell,...

The author of Welcome to the New World and Bad Paper discusses America's obsession with celebrity in this 2007 investigation. Why do more people watch American Idol than the nightly news? What is it about Paris Hilton's dating life that lures us so? Why do teenage girls-when given the option of "pressing a magic button and becoming either stronger, smarter, famous, or more beautiful" -predominantly opt for fame? In this entertaining and enlightening...

As fandom sheds its longtime stigmas of geekiness and hysteria, fans are demanding more from the celebrities and brands they love. Digital tools have given all organizations? From traditional businesses to tech startups? Direct, real-time access to their most devoted consumers, and it's easy to forget that this access flows both ways. This is the new "fandom-based economy": a convergence of brand owner and brand consumer. Fan pressures hold more clout...

When married sci-fi fans Bjo and John Trimble organized their unprecedented letter-writing campaign to force NBC to renew the original Star Trek back in 1967, they couldn't have known that they were also planting the seeds of television fan activism that would forever change the relationship between viewers and networks.

"In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?" Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the...