Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, this event has to be rescheduled. We apologize for the inconvenience but keep an eye on the event calendar in the coming months!

The Nonfiction Book Club presents an author talk and book discussion with Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, authors of War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War. These two sports historians will give us insights into the research that went into the book before opening a discussion conversation among participants. 

Copies of War Fever are available to pick up at the library. Click here to learn more about picking up books in the library. Please email Chris Tremblay at ctremblay@minlib.net or Corinne Coveney at ccoveney@minlib.net if you have any questions.

About War Fever: 

A “marvelous” (Sports Illustrated) portrait of the three men whose lives were forever changed by WWI-era Boston and the Spanish flu: baseball star Babe Ruth, symphony conductor Karl Muck, and Harvard law student Charles Whittlesey

In the fall of 1918, a fever gripped Boston. The streets emptied as paranoia about the deadly Spanish flu spread. Newspapermen and vigilante investigators aggressively sought to discredit anyone who looked or sounded German. And as the war raged on, the enemy seemed to be lurking everywhere: prowling in submarines off the coast of Cape Cod, arriving on passenger ships in the harbor, or disguised as the radicals lecturing workers about the injustice of a sixty-hour workweek.

War Fever explores this delirious moment in American history through the stories of three men: Karl Muck, the German conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, accused of being an enemy spy; Charles Whittlesey, a Harvard law graduate who became an unlikely hero in Europe; and the most famous baseball player of all time, Babe Ruth, poised to revolutionize the game he loved. Together, they offer a gripping narrative of America at war and American culture in upheaval.

This event is part of the Friends Author Series. Thank you to the Friends of the Belmont Public Library!