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

Of class, they believed in her. She had been i of the top revenue enhancement accountants in the country. She was whip- smart, driven, and tireless — "on 82 different boards," as she likes to say, which is simply a slight exaggeration. She fifty-fifty grew upward in business: Every bit a daughter, she kept the books for her male parent's bakeries. "If yous were to choice a dream person to beginning her own bookstore, information technology would be Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Faith Middleton. "She's and so smart about concern."

Coady nearly proved everybody incorrect.

For the first several years, R.J. Julia Contained 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 former existent-estate developer, had saved up. It was twice what she should have invested, but she couldn't resist going all out on free wine and food at book signings, stylish extra-strength numberless, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving bug, I threw more money at them," she says. "I didn't run the store like a business concern."

As an accountant, Coady had always used her caput. Merely equally a bookseller and volume lover, she let her center have over. She built the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business. "Now," she says, "I'm combining caput and center."

Xiii years after dramatically changing careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off after all. In the same time that about one-half of the independent bookstores in the country accept airtight, R.J. Julia has accomplished more than $three 1000000 in annual sales and a modest profit. And Coady, its ever-stylish, opinionated, and animated owner, has fabricated the transition from successful auditor 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 U.s. in 1948, settling in New York'southward Lower East Side. Although her mother had nevertheless to sympathise English, she read to her children anyway, pronouncing the words phonetically. One time Coady learned to read, she wanted to tackle every children's book in the library in alphabetical order. When she was in center school, her male parent, a baker, purchased the starting time of 10 bakeries, chosen Em'due south, and brought her to a meeting with his auditor.

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

"She is," her father replied.

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

Past the 1980s, Coady had become a partner and national revenue enhancement director at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international accounting firm. She was the outset woman selected for the job. "People tell me at present, 'Information technology must have been ho-hum working with taxes,' " Coady says. "But I loved it." She had a 12th-floor corner role overlooking Central Park and was making nigh $250,000 a year. In 1988, she was featured on the cover of Money magazine, which dubbed her "the accountant's accountant."

Exciting stuff, to be sure. But it wasn't enough to keep her in that location. "As much as I enjoyed the work, it wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, simply it wasn't enriching to my middle." At to the lowest degree non in the way that books had always been.

Even as she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an insatiable reader. She would e'er comport 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 footling library out of my firm," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the best book you lot gave me.' "

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

Creating a Modernistic-Day Boondocks Light-green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady'southward grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration camp in World War II, is much more than a store where you purchase the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. It'southward a local establishment that has go interwoven with people's lives as few businesses are. "It'due south the center of the community," 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 boondocks are inseparable." Area residents experience a responsibleness to support the independent bookstore — their bookstore — even if information technology means paying a footling more than at times.

From the get-go, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to be a mod-day town light-green. "I felt people were becoming asunder from each other," she says. "Nosotros had lost a public place for conversation about things that mattered." The shop hosts more than 200 events a yr, from book signings to book-club meetings to children's-story hr on Wednesday mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has fabricated Madison, an flush coastal town with 2,200 residents, a regular book-bout end betwixt 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 club at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English language at the University of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were notwithstanding teaching in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes forty minutes a day, three days a week. "It's an enormous time investment and, yes, I practise it for free," says Jacobus. "But 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 dominate, the staff is well read, which prepares them for "hand-selling" — that is, recommending books that they or their colleagues have read. "That'south the value that we add together to the volume-ownership experience," Coady says. "We put the right volume in the correct hands." The store's tiptop-selling department is staff recommendations, where each volume is accompanied past a "shelf talker," a capsule review from a bookseller, or in the case of the new Harry Potter, by a bookseller's kid ("I'm 11, and I finished in exactly five days, down to the hr! One time y'all start reading it, you lot won't end!" raves Hana, the managing director'south stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is 1 of near 35 booksellers on staff. Like Coady, she'southward sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking about books all twenty-four hours. She can't imagine working at a concatenation, fifty-fifty the one that's coming to Waterford, about 15 miles from where she lives. "There are too many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I can give a discount to a client whenever I want to." It's true. Coady lets the staff practice any information technology takes to make a client happy. There may not be many official rules, but the staff definitely knows the kind of store that she wants R.J. Julia to be. When it comes to sharing likes and dislikes, Coady'southward an open volume. As she reminds the staff, she prefers the offer, "Allow me know if I can exist of assistance," or "Are you finding what y'all need?" "Tin can I aid you?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, it was love with R.J. Julia at start browse. The night wooden bookshelves, brass fixtures, and renditions of diverse 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-scientific discipline department at the University of New Haven, can spend entire afternoons shopping, which translates to betwixt $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And notwithstanding, it's hard 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'southward the centre of the customs," says an R.J. Julia client. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable."

Mayhap 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 recent visit, she picked upwardly a special order, The Thin Woman, a lighthearted British who-done-information technology, written by Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What'southward remarkable about her buy is that Harrington never requested the volume. In fact, she had never even 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 Issue

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, similar many modest towns, was in decline. Suburban large-box retailers were becoming the rage. "Later on I opened, the theater, the hardware shop, the v-and-dime, and the eatery all closed," she says. "I thought, 'What did I just do?' " Now, Madison is a dissimilar story. Although the concern district consists of just one long cake on Boston Post Road, there's an art house and an elegant Italian restaurant across from R.J. Julia. There are a variety of shops and boutiques. There'due south even a Starbucks.

Every bit an entrepreneur, Coady has come up a long way herself. She'south running R.J. Julia like a business organisation, with budgets, a training manual, and more-structured evaluations. By coincidence, her son Edward and the store were built-in in the same year. Since turning 13 this yr, says Coady, both take had their bar mitzvahs: Edward became a man, R.J. Julia a mature business.

In reality, though, calculation corporate subject field to the bookstore remains a claiming, especially without the fiscal incentives she had at her disposal at a major accounting business firm. Instead, Coady offers a casual, fun surround in which booksellers can be their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative word in contained bookseller is independent. 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 be next. "This is where the democracy thing shoots me in the pes," she says.

Coady'south natural effusiveness and love of writing — she reads well-nigh half-dozen books at a fourth dimension — make her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the floor, our sales become up twenty%," says store manager Meredith Warner. Faith Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Issue twice a month, when Coady appears on her show to talk near books. Recently, as she described Family History, Dani Shapiro'south novel most a mother's attempts to save her fractured family, "the hair stood up on the back of my neck," says Middleton. "You could hear a pin drop in the studio."

That passion infuses every foursquare foot of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its possessor. When Coady starting time contemplated changing careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would be a modify of pace, less demanding for her than being an executive at a big firm. "I often joke that I gave upward money for time, and now I accept neither," she says. She'southward however a type A, and 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-shop expanse, and drawing up a business plan to take the brand in new directions.

A second R.J. Julia? A chain of stores? Coady can't say. That chapter has even so to be written.

Sidebar: v Great Reads

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

Beneath are v of her best favorite books. If these aren't enough, bank check out R.J. Julia'south 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

"Information technology's about World War 2 and the Holocaust from the perspective of a small High german town that may or may not empathise what's going on, but in a quiet way is mimicking what's happening. You lot experience the impact of betrayal and of existence co-conspirators through silence."

Dearest 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 time."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"It'southward well-nigh sorrow as a style of defining y'all, how you need it to live and role in a meaningful way. Information technology'southward a philosophical book, but 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 feel. This is one of those books that changes the way you lot look at the globe."

A Child'due south Anthology of Poesy by Elizabeth Sword

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

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