Book Depot closing

After more than 16 years of serving local book-lovers, The Book Depot at Kinston’s Vernon Park Mall is closing, the latest victim of the ongoing recession.

“I am heartsick, absolutely heartsick,” longtime patron Linda Hodges said. “It’s my candy store; I love to go there, and it’s breaking my heart.”

Debra Schreckengost of Kinston opened The Book Depot during 1993 after Waldenbooks — where she had worked since 1980 — closed that same year.

She moved the shop to several locations, including the Wal-Mart shopping center on U.S. 70 and the Kinston Plaza, until settling in the mall in 2004.

“That’s what I love to do,” Schreckengost said. “I love to turn people on to good books, so it was just a natural extension of that desire.”

The shop was successful for most of the years she ran it, and was known for events such as book signings and celebrations whenever the latest Harry Potter book was released, but the economic downturn of the past three years has meant fewer and fewer customers.

“People do not have as much discretionary income as they used to,” Schreckengost said.

She has tried many methods of keeping the shop afloat, including selling the Melissa & Doug line of educational toys and crafts.

“I knew that if I closed this store, that it would be leaving the community without a ready source of books, especially parents of school-age kids who have to buy their kids books for school; they’ll have to now go out of town,” she said.

The Melissa & Doug products sold well, bringing in customers from as far away as Raleigh. Schreckengost said mall managers also tried everything they could to work with her and help keep her in business.

“Mall management has been instrumental in keeping me here this long,” she said. “They have helped me out so much and I could not be here if it wasn’t for them. They’ve bent over backwards to keep me here; they know it’s important, but the sales just could not support it.”

Three of her longtime customers said Schreckengost and her employees provided a relaxed environment, and they came to know their tastes in books. They said the proprietor regularly ordered books that they expressed an interest in and would often call them if a book came into the store that fit their interests.

“The store was very relaxing; there was no pressure ... it was just a nice place to go to sit in a chair and browse through a book,” Hodges said. “And I’m very horrified that Lenoir County cannot support an independent bookstore.”

Heather Callicutt, 31, of Kinston, has shopped at The Book Depot since she was in high school, and still visits every week with her mother.

“I’m very upset, she’s always held books for me, put them off to the side, suggested books for me to get,” she said of Schreckengost. “We read about the same kind of books, so if something interested her, she knew that would interest me.”

Beatrice C. Davis of Kinston also mourned the loss of “our store.”

“I told (Schreckengost), ‘If my name was Oprah, the store would still be open,’ ” Davis said.

Davis and the others lamented that they will have to purchase new books online or out of town, because there are no other major bookstores in the area — used books can be purchased at Mockingbird Books in downtown Kinston, and books are free at the library, though.

“Being a patron of a bookstore, it’s establishing relationships ... everything that I needed to read, whether I was buying it for myself or for gifts, they had it at The Book Depot,” Davis said.

David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.