NCC Reads is a county-wide book club experience.
Each year, the county picks a book, and invites anyone interested to read along. In 2010, the program began to feature an author talk so community members could hear directly from the author.
Since then, popularity has skyrocketed. Last year 972 people participated, with nearly 200 book clubs taking part.
The 2023 book selection is “FUZZ: When Nature Breaks the Law,” written by Pulitzer Prize winning author Mary Roach. Since being announced, 1,900 copies of the book have been distributed.
Roach’s book explores cases of animals committing crimes, and how communities address these cases.
Roach said many things she learned in her research surprised her - particularly cases of crimes involving elephants.
“I grew up with the sense of elephants being kind of a gentle, big, lumbering, harmless creature. But in India the number I was told is 500 people a year are killed by elephants,” Roach said.
Roach hopes readers have fun reading the book, and hopefully learn some surprising facts.
FUZZ has won several awards, including the #1 Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller, and being listed as a Washington Post Notable Book of 2021, and an NPR 2021 Best Book of the Year.
New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer is one of those participating in the NCC Reads program. He told Roach he was surprised her book was non-fiction.
“In my 6 years I think this is the first non-fiction book we’ve had. But just from the little I’ve read, it really reads like fiction. Some of the stories are just so incredible,” said Meyer.
This year’s author talk is expected to be the biggest yet. More than 500 people are already registered for the event Thursday, April 20 at the Wilmington Chase Center.
