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

Of course, they believed in her. She had been one of the top taxation 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: As a girl, she kept the books for her father's bakeries. "If you were to pick a dream person to start her own bookstore, information technology would be Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Faith Middleton. "She's so smart nearly business."

Coady nearly proved everybody wrong.

For the first several years, R.J. Julia Contained Booksellers, located on the main drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew past leaps and bounds. 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 existent-manor developer, had saved upwards. Information technology 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 bags, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving issues, I threw more than money at them," she says. "I didn't run the store like a business organisation."

As an accountant, Coady had always used her caput. But every bit a bookseller and volume lover, she let her heart take over. She built the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business organisation. "Now," she says, "I'm combining head and heart."

Thirteen years after dramatically changing careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull information technology off after all. In the same time that almost half of the independent bookstores in the land have closed, R.J. Julia has achieved more than $3 1000000 in almanac sales and a modest turn a profit. And Coady, its ever-fashionable, opinionated, and animated owner, has made 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 by her parents, who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States in 1948, settling in New York's Lower East Side. Although her mother had still to sympathise English language, she read to her children anyhow, 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 middle schoolhouse, her father, a baker, purchased the get-go of 10 bakeries, called Em'due south, and brought her to a meeting with his accountant.

"Who'south going to exercise the accounting?" the accountant asked.

"She is," her begetter replied.

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

By the 1980s, Coady had get a partner and national revenue enhancement manager at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international accounting house. She was the first woman selected for the job. "People tell me at present, 'It must have been wearisome working with taxes,' " Coady says. "Only I loved information technology." She had a 12th-floor corner office overlooking Primal Park and was making about $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 plenty to go on her in that location. "Equally much every bit I enjoyed the work, it wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, only it wasn't enriching to my heart." At least non in the way that books had always been.

Fifty-fifty as she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an insatiable reader. She would always deport 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 house," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the best book y'all gave me.' "

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

Creating a Modern-Day Town Green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady's grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration camp in World War II, is much more than than a store where yous 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's the eye of the community," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, managing director, and producer who lives in neighboring Guilford and attends a monthly book-guild meetings at R.J. Julia. "The bookstore and the boondocks are inseparable." Area residents experience a responsibility to back up the independent bookstore — their bookstore — fifty-fifty if it means paying a little more at times.

From the kickoff, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to be a modern-twenty-four hour period town green. "I felt people were condign disconnected from each other," she says. "Nosotros had lost a public place for conversation about things that mattered." The store hosts more than 200 events a year, from book signings to book-guild meetings to children's-story hour on Wednesday mornings. Past lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has made Madison, an affluent littoral town with 2,200 residents, a regular book-tour cease 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 proffer, Lee Jacobus started a classical literature book club at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were still teaching in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes 40 minutes a twenty-four hour period, iii days a week. "It's an enormous time investment and, yes, I practice it for free," says Jacobus. "But this is an institution that should be supported. It's important to the intellectual life of the boondocks."

For R.J. Julia to distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace, Coady believes it has to offer unparalleled service and expertise. Like 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 to the book-buying experience," Coady says. "We put the right volume in the correct hands." The shop's top-selling section is staff recommendations, where each volume is accompanied by a "shelf talker," a capsule review from a bookseller, or in the case of the new Harry Potter, by a bookseller'southward child ("I'thou eleven, and I finished in exactly five days, downward to the hour! Once y'all start reading it, you lot won't stop!" raves Hana, the manager's stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is one of virtually 35 booksellers on staff. Like Coady, she's 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 15 miles from where she lives. "There are too many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I can give a discount to a customer whenever I want to." It'due south truthful. Coady lets the staff do whatever information technology takes to make a customer happy. There may non be many official rules, but the staff definitely knows the kind of shop that she wants R.J. Julia to be. When information technology comes to sharing likes and dislikes, Coady'southward an open book. Every bit she reminds the staff, she prefers the offer, "Let me know if I tin exist of help," or "Are y'all finding what you need?" "Can I help you?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, it was beloved with R.J. Julia at first browse. The dark wooden bookshelves, contumely fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood flooring give the place the ambient 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 betwixt $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And nevertheless, it's hard to say who benefits more: Ferringer or the bookstore. "I know them by name," she says of the staff. "There's Nancy, Karen, Lisa, Suzanne, Meredith, Beth, Babette, Roxanne."

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

Perhaps the all-time measure of R.J. Julia'south relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a customer from the showtime. During a recent visit, she picked upward a special club, The Thin Woman, a lighthearted British who-washed-it, written by Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What'southward remarkable near her buy is that Harrington never requested the volume. 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 Effect

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many pocket-size towns, was in decline. Suburban big-box retailers were condign the rage. "After I opened, the theater, the hardware shop, the five-and-dime, and the restaurant all airtight," she says. "I thought, 'What did I just do?' " Now, Madison is a different story. Although the business district consists of just one long block on Boston Postal service Route, there'south an art business firm and an elegant Italian restaurant across from R.J. Julia. At that place are a variety of shops and boutiques. There's fifty-fifty a Starbucks.

As an entrepreneur, Coady has come a long way herself. She's running R.J. Julia similar a concern, with budgets, a training manual, and more-structured evaluations. Past coincidence, her son Edward and the store were built-in in the same year. Since turning thirteen this year, says Coady, both take had their bar mitzvahs: Edward became a human being, R.J. Julia a mature business.

In reality, though, adding corporate discipline 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 environs in which booksellers can exist their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative discussion in contained bookseller is contained. When Coady tried to get the staff to habiliment matching R.J. Julia shirts, they declined. And then she bought R.J. Julia buttons, which no i wore for long. A newly arrived box of dark-green R.J. Julia lanyards in the part could be next. "This is where the republic matter shoots me in the foot," she says.

Coady's natural effusiveness and dearest of writing — she reads about six books at a fourth dimension — brand her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the floor, our sales become upward 20%," says store director Meredith Warner. Organized religion Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Result twice a month, when Coady appears on her evidence to talk about books. Recently, as she described Family History, Dani Shapiro'southward novel about a mother'south attempts to save her fractured family, "the pilus stood up on the back of my neck," says Middleton. "Yous could hear a pivot drop in the studio."

That passion infuses every square foot of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its owner. When Coady showtime 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 often joke that I gave up money for time, and now I accept neither," she says. She's still a type A, so it comes equally no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she's expanding the children's section, revamping the gift-store area, and drawing up a business plan to have the brand in new directions.

A second R.J. Julia? A concatenation of stores? Coady can't say. That chapter has all the same to exist written.

Sidebar: five Great Reads

"Everybody has time for 1 discretionary thing," says Roxanne Coady, the owner of R.J. Julia. "Mine'south reading."

Below are five of her all-time favorite books. If these aren't enough, 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

"It's about Globe War 2 and the Holocaust from the perspective of a pocket-sized German town that may or may not empathize what's going on, simply in a quiet way is mimicking what'south happening. You lot feel the bear upon of betrayal and of being 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 fourth dimension."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"It's about sorrow as a way of defining y'all, how you demand it to live and function in a meaningful way. It's a philosophical volume, but in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka way."

The Bluest Middle past Toni Morrison

"The narrator is a blackness girl who has been driveling, and the novel is about how she moves through that experience. This is one of those books that changes the way you lot look at the world."

A Child's Anthology of Poesy past Elizabeth Sword

"I've been reading from this to my son since he was two, and we always 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 near R.J. Julia on the Spider web (www.rjjulia.com).