If anyone could pull information technology off, she could. That'due south what friends and colleagues said when Roxanne Coady left New York in 1989 to open a bookstore in a modest boondocks.

Of class, they believed in her. She had been one of the tiptop tax accountants in the country. She was whip- smart, driven, and tireless — "on 82 different boards," equally she likes to say, which is only a slight exaggeration. She even grew upward in business: As a girl, she kept the books for her father'south bakeries. "If you were to pick a dream person to beginning her ain bookstore, it would be Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Organized religion Middleton. "She's so smart about business concern."

Coady nearly proved everybody incorrect.

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

Every bit an accountant, Coady had always used her caput. But as a bookseller and book lover, she allow her heart have over. She built the most highly-seasoned bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business. "Now," she says, "I'one thousand combining head and heart."

Thirteen years later on dramatically irresolute careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off after all. In the aforementioned fourth dimension that virtually half of the independent bookstores in the country accept closed, R.J. Julia has achieved more than $3 1000000 in annual sales and a pocket-size profit. And Coady, its e'er-fashionable, opinionated, and animated owner, has made 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 past her parents, who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the Us in 1948, settling in New York'due south Lower East Side. Although her mother had nevertheless to understand English, she read to her children anyway, pronouncing the words phonetically. Once Coady learned to read, she wanted to tackle every children'south volume in the library in alphabetical gild. When she was in middle school, her father, a baker, purchased the first of x bakeries, called Em's, and brought her to a coming together with his auditor.

"Who's going to do the accounting?" the accountant asked.

"She is," her male parent replied.

He wasn't joking. The accountant agreed to teach her, and Coady, the oldest of six, juggled school, family unit babe-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for higher. "Now my father feels I piece of work too hard," she says, laughing. "He says, 'Yous can't ride two horses with one ass.' I tell him, 'Daddy, this is what you lot raised me to do.' "

By the 1980s, Coady had become a partner and national tax director at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international bookkeeping firm. She was the first woman selected for the job. "People tell me now, 'Information technology must have been ho-hum working with taxes,' " Coady says. "Simply I loved information technology." She had a 12th-floor corner office overlooking Central Park and was making about $250,000 a year. In 1988, she was featured on the encompass of Coin magazine, which dubbed her "the auditor'due south accountant."

Exciting stuff, to be sure. But it wasn't enough to go along her there. "As much every bit I enjoyed the piece of work, it wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, but it wasn't enriching to my heart." At least not in the style that books had ever been.

Fifty-fifty equally she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an clamorous reader. She would always acquit 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 trivial library out of my house," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the all-time book you lot gave me.' "

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

Creating a Modern-Day Town Light-green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady's grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration camp in World War II, is much more than a shop where you purchase the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. It's a local institution that has become interwoven with people's lives as few businesses are. "It'south the center of the customs," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, director, and producer who lives in neighboring Guilford and attends a monthly book-lodge meetings at R.J. Julia. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable." Surface area residents experience a responsibility to back up the independent bookstore — their bookstore — even if it ways paying a niggling more at times.

From the commencement, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to exist a modern-solar day boondocks green. "I felt people were condign disconnected from each other," she says. "We had lost a public place for conversation about things that mattered." The store hosts more than than 200 events a year, from book signings to book-club meetings to children'south-story hour on Wednesday mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has made Madison, an affluent littoral town with ii,200 residents, a regular volume-tour end 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 gild at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were still instruction in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes 40 minutes a day, iii days a week. "It's an enormous time investment and, yes, I do it for free," says Jacobus. "Simply this is an institution that should be supported. It's important to the intellectual life of the town."

For R.J. Julia to distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace, Coady believes it has to offer unparalleled service and expertise. Similar their boss, the staff is well read, which prepares them for "manus-selling" — that is, recommending books that they or their colleagues have read. "That's the value that nosotros add to the book-ownership feel," Coady says. "We put the right book in the right easily." The store'southward peak-selling section is staff recommendations, where each book is accompanied past a "shelf talker," a capsule review from a bookseller, or in the example of the new Harry Potter, by a bookseller'due south child ("I'1000 11, and I finished in exactly five days, down to the hour! Once you commencement reading information technology, you won't stop!" raves Hana, the managing director'south stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is one of about 35 booksellers on staff. Like Coady, she'south sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking near books all day. She tin can't imagine working at a concatenation, even the one that'due south coming to Waterford, nearly 15 miles from where she lives. "There are too many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I can requite a disbelieve to a client whenever I want to." It'south true. Coady lets the staff practice whatever it takes to make a customer happy. There may not be many official rules, only 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'southward an open up book. As she reminds the staff, she prefers the offering, "Let me know if I can be of assistance," or "Are you finding what you need?" "Can I aid y'all?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, it was honey with R.J. Julia at first browse. The dark wooden bookshelves, brass fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood flooring give the place the ambience of a neighborhood bookstore in Europe or New York. Ferringer, the head of the political-science section at the Academy of New Haven, tin spend entire afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And yet, it's hard to say who benefits more: Ferringer or the bookstore. "I know them by name," she says of the staff. "There'due south Nancy, Karen, Lisa, Suzanne, Meredith, Beth, Babette, Roxanne."

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

Maybe the best measure of R.J. Julia'southward relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a customer from the beginning. During a contempo 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'south remarkable about her buy is that Harrington never requested the book. In fact, she had never fifty-fifty heard of information technology. "Suzanne ordered it for me without my knowing," she says.

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

She was right.

The Roxanne Outcome

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many small towns, was in turn down. Suburban large-box retailers were becoming the rage. "Later I opened, the theater, the hardware store, the five-and-dime, and the eatery all closed," she says. "I thought, 'What did I just exercise?' " At present, Madison is a different story. Although the business district consists of merely 1 long block on Boston Mail Road, at that place's an fine 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'south fifty-fifty a Starbucks.

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

In reality, though, adding corporate subject to the bookstore remains a challenge, especially without the financial incentives she had at her disposal at a major accounting house. Instead, Coady offers a casual, fun environment in which booksellers can be their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative discussion in independent bookseller is contained. When Coady tried to become the staff to wearable 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 part could be next. "This is where the republic thing shoots me in the foot," she says.

Coady'southward natural effusiveness and dearest of writing — she reads nearly vi books at a time — make her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the flooring, our sales get upward 20%," says shop managing director Meredith Warner. Faith Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Effect twice a month, when Coady appears on her testify to talk about books. Recently, as she described Family History, Dani Shapiro'due south novel well-nigh a mother's attempts to save her fractured family unit, "the hair stood up on the dorsum of my neck," says Middleton. "Yous could hear a pin driblet in the studio."

That passion infuses every square foot of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its owner. When Coady first contemplated changing careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would be a change of pace, less demanding for her than being an executive at a large firm. "I frequently joke that I gave up coin for time, and now I take neither," she says. She'south still a type A, so it comes as no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she's expanding the children's section, revamping the souvenir-store expanse, and drawing up a business plan to take the brand in new directions.

A 2nd R.J. Julia? A chain of stores? Coady tin't say. That chapter has yet to exist written.

Sidebar: five Nifty Reads

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

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

Stones From the River past Ursula Hegi

"It'south about Earth War II and the Holocaust from the perspective of a pocket-size German boondocks that may or may not empathize what's going on, only in a tranquillity way is mimicking what'southward happening. You lot experience the impact of betrayal and of existence co-conspirators through silence."

Honey Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey

"A view of the Revolution from Abigail's vantage bespeak, what it was similar at home, raising her kids during a unsafe time."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"It's near sorrow equally a way of defining you lot, how you need it to live and function in a meaningful manner. Information technology's a philosophical book, merely in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka way."

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

"The narrator is a black daughter who has been abused, and the novel is about how she moves through that experience. This is ane of those books that changes the style y'all look at the world."

A Child's Anthology of Poetry by Elizabeth Sword

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

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior author based in Baltimore. Learn more about R.J. Julia on the Spider web (www.rjjulia.com).