If anyone could pull it off, she could. That'southward what friends and colleagues said when Roxanne Coady left New York in 1989 to open a bookstore in a small town.

Of form, they believed in her. She had been one of the top tax accountants in the state. She was whip- smart, driven, and tireless — "on 82 different boards," as she likes to say, which is only a slight exaggeration. She even grew up in business concern: As a girl, she kept the books for her male parent's bakeries. "If you were to pick a dream person to start her ain bookstore, it would be Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Faith Middleton. "She'southward so smart about business organisation."

Coady nearly proved everybody wrong.

For the start several years, R.J. Julia Independent Booksellers, located on the main drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew by leaps and premises. The im-pressive growth, however, obscured a dotcomlike inability to turn a profit. Coady says that she ignored budgets and "blew probably $250,000" of the money that she and her husband, a onetime real-manor programmer, had saved up. It was twice what she should accept invested, but she couldn't resist going all out on free vino and food at book signings, stylish extra-strength bags, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving problems, I threw more money at them," she says. "I didn't run the store like a business."

As an accountant, Coady had ever used her caput. Merely as a bookseller and volume lover, she permit her middle take over. She congenital the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business organisation. "At present," she says, "I'm combining head and middle."

Xiii years after dramatically changing careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off later on all. In the same fourth dimension that most half of the independent bookstores in the country have closed, R.J. Julia has achieved more than than $three million in annual sales and a modest profit. And Coady, its ever-fashionable, opinionated, and blithe owner, has fabricated the transition from successful accountant to successful bookseller.

A Bookseller Waiting to Happen

Coady's passion for reading and her talent for accounting were inspired by her parents, who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the Us in 1948, settling in New York's Lower East Side. Although her mother had yet to sympathise English, she read to her children anyway, pronouncing the words phonetically. Once Coady learned to read, she wanted to tackle every children's book in the library in alphabetical order. When she was in centre school, her father, a baker, purchased the first of 10 bakeries, called Em's, and brought her to a meeting with his accountant.

"Who's going to exercise the bookkeeping?" the auditor asked.

"She is," her begetter replied.

He wasn't joking. The accountant agreed to teach her, and Coady, the oldest of 6, juggled school, family baby-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for higher. "Now my begetter feels I work likewise hard," she says, laughing. "He says, 'You tin't ride two horses with one ass.' I tell him, 'Daddy, this is what y'all raised me to do.' "

By the 1980s, Coady had go a partner and national tax director at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international accounting firm. She was the first woman selected for the job. "People tell me now, 'It must have been irksome working with taxes,' " Coady says. "But I loved it." She had a 12th-floor corner office overlooking Central Park and was making virtually $250,000 a yr. In 1988, she was featured on the comprehend of Money mag, which dubbed her "the accountant's accountant."

Heady stuff, to exist sure. Simply information technology wasn't enough to keep her at that place. "As much as I enjoyed the piece of work, information technology wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, but it wasn't enriching to my heart." At least not in the way that books had always been.

Even as she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an insatiable reader. She would always carry a novel with her, stealing a few moments in a taxi, on the train, anywhere. She was forever recommending favorite titles to friends. "I ran a piffling library out of my house," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the best book you gave me.' "

They were telling her something. It was time to make a modify.

Creating a Modern-Day Town Dark-green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady's grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration military camp in World State of war Two, is much more than a store where you lot buy the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. Information technology's a local institution that has get interwoven with people'due south lives as few businesses are. "It's the heart of the customs," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, managing director, and producer who lives in neighboring Guilford and attends a monthly volume-society meetings at R.J. Julia. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable." Area residents feel a responsibleness to support the independent bookstore — their bookstore — even if it ways paying a little more at times.

From the beginning, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to be a modernistic-day boondocks dark-green. "I felt people were becoming disconnected from each other," she says. "Nosotros had lost a public place for chat well-nigh things that mattered." The store hosts more than 200 events a year, from book signings to volume-club meetings to children'due south-story hour on Wednesday mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has made Madison, an flush littoral town with 2,200 residents, a regular book-tour stop between New York and Boston. The walls are lined with dozens of autographed photos of past visitors: Jimmy Carter, Garrison Keillor, and Anne Rice.

At Coady's suggestion, Lee Jacobus started a classical literature book society at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were still education in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes 40 minutes a twenty-four hours, three days a week. "It's an enormous fourth dimension investment and, yes, I do information technology for complimentary," says Jacobus. "Merely this is an institution that should be supported. It'south important to the intellectual life of the town."

For R.J. Julia to distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace, Coady believes information technology has to offer unparalleled service and expertise. Like their boss, the staff is well read, which prepares them for "hand-selling" — that is, recommending books that they or their colleagues have read. "That'southward the value that nosotros add to the volume-buying experience," Coady says. "We put the right book in the right hands." The store'due south summit-selling section is staff recommendations, where each book is accompanied by a "shelf talker," a sheathing review from a bookseller, or in the case of the new Harry Potter, by a bookseller's child ("I'm xi, and I finished in exactly five days, down to the hour! Once you start reading information technology, you won't cease!" raves Hana, the manager's stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is ane of about 35 booksellers on staff. Like Coady, she'southward sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking about books all day. She can't imagine working at a chain, even the one that's coming to Waterford, about fifteen miles from where she lives. "There are too many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I tin give a disbelieve to a customer whenever I want to." It'south true. Coady lets the staff practice whatever information technology takes to brand a client happy. There may non be many official rules, merely the staff definitely knows the kind of store that she wants R.J. Julia to be. When information technology comes to sharing likes and dislikes, Coady's an open up book. As she reminds the staff, she prefers the offer, "Allow me know if I can be of assist," or "Are y'all finding what y'all demand?" "Can I help you?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, it was dear with R.J. Julia at offset browse. The dark wooden bookshelves, contumely fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood floor give the place the ambience of a neighborhood bookstore in Europe or New York. Ferringer, the head of the political-science department at the University of New Haven, can spend entire afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And yet, information technology's difficult to say who benefits more: Ferringer or the bookstore. "I know them by name," she says of the staff. "In that location's Nancy, Karen, Lisa, Suzanne, Meredith, Beth, Babette, Roxanne."

"It's the centre of the community," says an R.J. Julia customer. "The bookstore and the boondocks are inseparable."

Possibly the best mensurate of R.J. Julia's relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a customer from the beginning. During a recent visit, she picked up a special order, The Thin Woman, a lighthearted British who-done-it, written by Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What's remarkable about her purchase is that Harrington never requested the book. In fact, she had never fifty-fifty heard of it. "Suzanne ordered it for me without my knowing," she says.

"I knew she'd love it," says Coopersmith.

She was right.

The Roxanne Outcome

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many small towns, was in decline. Suburban big-box retailers were becoming the rage. "After I opened, the theater, the hardware store, the v-and-dime, and the eating place all closed," she says. "I thought, 'What did I just do?' " Now, Madison is a unlike story. Although the concern district consists of just ane long block on Boston Post Road, there's an art house and an elegant Italian restaurant across from R.J. Julia. In that location are a variety of shops and boutiques. At that place's even a Starbucks.

As an entrepreneur, Coady has come a long way herself. She's running R.J. Julia like a business, with budgets, a training transmission, and more-structured evaluations. By coincidence, her son Edward and the shop were born in the aforementioned yr. Since turning 13 this twelvemonth, says Coady, both have had their bar mitzvahs: Edward became a man, R.J. Julia a mature business.

In reality, though, adding corporate discipline to the bookstore remains a claiming, especially without the financial incentives she had at her disposal at a major accounting firm. Instead, Coady offers a casual, fun surround in which booksellers tin be their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative give-and-take in independent bookseller is contained. When Coady tried to get the staff to wear matching R.J. Julia shirts, they declined. So she bought R.J. Julia buttons, which no one wore for long. A newly arrived box of green R.J. Julia lanyards in the office could exist next. "This is where the republic thing shoots me in the human foot," she says.

Coady'due south natural effusiveness and love of writing — she reads about vi books at a fourth dimension — make her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the floor, our sales become up xx%," says store director Meredith Warner. Faith Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Issue twice a month, when Coady appears on her show to talk nearly books. Recently, as she described Family unit History, Dani Shapiro's novel near a mother's attempts to save her fractured family, "the pilus stood up on the back of my cervix," says Middleton. "Y'all could hear a pin drop in the studio."

That passion infuses every square foot of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its owner. When Coady get-go contemplated changing careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would be a alter of step, less demanding for her than beingness an executive at a large business firm. "I often joke that I gave up coin for time, and now I have neither," she says. She's still a type A, and then information technology comes as no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she's expanding the children'south section, revamping the souvenir-store area, and drawing up a business plan to accept the make in new directions.

A 2d R.J. Julia? A chain of stores? Coady tin can't say. That affiliate has however to be written.

Sidebar: five Smashing Reads

"Everybody has time for one discretionary matter," says Roxanne Coady, the owner of R.J. Julia. "Mine's reading."

Below are five of her all-time favorite books. If these aren't enough, cheque out R.J. Julia'southward lists of recommended books for adults (www.rjjulia.com/fivefeet.htm) and kids (www.rjjulia.com/threefeet.htm).

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi

"It's about World War II and the Holocaust from the perspective of a pocket-sized German boondocks that may or may not understand what's going on, just in a repose way is mimicking what'southward happening. You feel the impact of betrayal and of being co-conspirators through silence."

Honey Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey

"A view of the Revolution from Abigail's vantage point, what it was like at home, raising her kids during a dangerous fourth dimension."

The Volume of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"It'southward about sorrow as a fashion of defining you lot, how yous need it to alive and function in a meaningful style. It's a philosophical book, but in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka mode."

The Bluest Eye past Toni Morrison

"The narrator is a black girl who has been abused, and the novel is almost how she moves through that experience. This is one of those books that changes the way you lot await at the globe."

A Child'southward Album of Poetry by Elizabeth Sword

"I've been reading from this to my son since he was 2, and we always detect something that amuses united states, whatever mood we're in."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer based in Baltimore. Larn more about R.J. Julia on the Web (www.rjjulia.com).