New Hanover County Library spotlights Wilmington author Jason Mott's 'Hell of a Book'

Jason Mott is the first author from the Wilmington area to win a National Book Award. Now, his award-winning novel "Hell of a Book" is the focus of a county-wide reading program co-sponsored by the New Hanover County Public Library.

The campaign opened  just as "Hell of a Book" came out in paperback from Dutton.

More: 'Hell of a Book': UNCW graduate Jason Mott wins prestigious National Book Award

"Hell of a Book" is the adult title in "Read Across the County," co-sponsored by the library, the county's Office of Diversity and Equity and Friends of the New Hanover Library. A variety of book-related programs are planned at libraries across the county.

Much of Mott's book deals with the toll of violence in the Black community. A panel discussion, using the book as a springboard to a discussion on community policing, will be held  at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 21, at the Pine Valley Public Library, 3802 S. College Road.

An open book club discussion of "Hell of a Book" will be held 2 p.m. July 26 in the New Hanover Room of the downtown library at 201 Chestnut St.

For more information, call the library at 910-798-6300.

Gene Merritt & 'DARE to Dream'

For anyone who knew Wilmington in the 1970s and early '80s, the rebirth of downtown and the completion of the Riverwalk is nothing short of amazing.

Now, longtime developer Gene Merritt chronicles that story in "DARE to Dream," a profusely illustrated 88-page booklet about Wilmington's revitalization.

DARE was the Downtown Area Revitalization Effort, a private nonprofit that evolved into today's Wilmington Downtown Inc. Merritt gives DARE a lot of the credit for revitalization's success.

A Wilmington native who returned to the city in 1975, Merritt is a longtime real estate dealer, appraiser and developer. In 2021, he received the StarNews' Lifetime Achievement Award.

More: 'Citizen warrior': Gene Merritt paved the way for today's downtown Wilmington

Much of the book originally appeared in the StarNews, and Merritt gives credit to the newspaper, and particularly to retired executive editor Pam Sander, for helping make it possible

"DARE to Dream" is available for $25 from GeneMerritt.com. A free Kindle edition is available online.

'Elmira Prison Camp Roster'

In books like "Confederate Fort Fisher" and "Fort Fisher to Elmira," Wilmington historian Richard H. Triebe has focused on the Civil War on the Lower Cape Fear — in particular what happened to the Confederate survivors who surrendered when Fort Fisher fell in January 1865.

Now, Triebe has compiled a massive, three-volume "Elmira Prison Camp Roster" (Coastal Books, $39.95 per volume) that should prove a treasure trove for genealogists and Civil War buffs.

Triebe has compiled records on just about all the 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war housed at the camp in Elmira, N.Y., between July 1864 and July 1865. (Most of the soldiers from Fort Fisher wound up there.) Each entry includes the prisoner's name, date of enlistment, regiment, date of capture and what happened to him.

Confederates called the camp "Hellmira," and Triebe has likened it to the notorious Confederate POW camp in Andersonville, Georgia. Food supplies were insufficient and the wooden, uninsulated barracks provided little shelter from a Northern winter. Some 2,700 of the prisoners, according to official figures, died in the camp, generally as a result of malnutrition or exposure. Of the Fort Fisher garrison, more died at Elmira than in combat.

Copies of the roster are available online or at the Fort Fisher State Historic Site.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: New Hanover Library spotlights author Jason Mott's 'Hell of a Book'