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

Of class, they believed in her. She had been one of the top taxation accountants in the country. She was whip- smart, driven, and tireless — "on 82 dissimilar boards," as she likes to say, which is merely a slight exaggeration. She fifty-fifty grew upwardly in business organisation: As a girl, she kept the books for her father's bakeries. "If yous were to pick a dream person to get-go her ain bookstore, it would exist Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Religion Middleton. "She'south and then smart about business."

Coady nearly proved everybody wrong.

For the first several years, R.J. Julia Independent Booksellers, located on the chief drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew past leaps and bounds. The im-pressive growth, however, obscured a dotcomlike inability to turn a turn a profit. Coady says that she ignored budgets and "blew probably $250,000" of the money that she and her husband, a one-time existent-estate developer, had saved upwardly. Information technology 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 numberless, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving problems, I threw more money at them," she says. "I didn't run the store similar a business."

As an accountant, Coady had e'er used her head. Just as a bookseller and volume lover, she permit her heart take over. She built the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business. "Now," she says, "I'thousand combining head and heart."

Thirteen years after dramatically changing careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off later all. In the same time that nearly one-half of the independent bookstores in the country accept airtight, R.J. Julia has accomplished more than $3 meg in almanac sales and a pocket-size profit. And Coady, its ever-fashionable, opinionated, and animated possessor, 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 female parent had yet to understand English, she read to her children anyway, pronouncing the words phonetically. One time Coady learned to read, she wanted to tackle every children'due south book in the library in alphabetical order. When she was in centre school, her male parent, a baker, purchased the first of 10 bakeries, called Em's, and brought her to a meeting with his accountant.

"Who's going to practice 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 school, family baby-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for college. "Now my father feels I work also hard," she says, laughing. "He says, 'You lot tin can't ride two horses with ane 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 managing director at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international bookkeeping house. She was the kickoff woman selected for the task. "People tell me at present, 'It must take been boring working with taxes,' " Coady says. "But I loved information technology." She had a twelfth-floor corner office overlooking Key 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'southward accountant."

Heady stuff, to be sure. But it wasn't enough to keep her there. "As much as I enjoyed the work, it wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, merely it wasn't enriching to my heart." At least not in the way that books had always been.

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

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

Creating a Modern-Twenty-four hour period Boondocks Dark-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 you buy the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. It'southward a local institution that has become interwoven with people's lives as few businesses are. "It's the eye of the customs," says Norman Weissman, a retired author, director, and producer who lives in neighboring Guilford and attends a monthly book-club meetings at R.J. Julia. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable." Expanse residents feel a responsibility to back up the independent bookstore — their bookstore — even if it ways paying a little more at times.

From the beginning, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to exist a modernistic-day town green. "I felt people were becoming asunder from each other," she says. "We had lost a public identify for chat about things that mattered." The store hosts more 200 events a year, from book signings to book-lodge meetings to children's-story hour on Wednesday mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has fabricated Madison, an affluent littoral town with 2,200 residents, a regular book-tour stop 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'southward suggestion, Lee Jacobus started a classical literature volume guild at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were nevertheless teaching in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes 40 minutes a mean solar day, three days a calendar week. "It'southward an enormous fourth dimension investment and, yes, I exercise it for complimentary," says Jacobus. "But this is an establishment 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 market, Coady believes it 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'due south the value that we add to the book-buying experience," Coady says. "We put the right book in the right hands." The store's meridian-selling department is staff recommendations, where each book is accompanied by a "shelf talker," a capsule review from a bookseller, or in the case of the new Harry Potter, past a bookseller's child ("I'm 11, and I finished in exactly five days, down to the hour! One time you first reading it, you won't stop!" raves Hana, the managing director'southward stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is one of virtually 35 booksellers on staff. Like Coady, she'due south sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking near books all 24-hour interval. She can't imagine working at a chain, even the one that's coming to Waterford, near 15 miles from where she lives. "There are too many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I tin give a disbelieve to a customer whenever I desire to." It'due south true. Coady lets the staff practice whatever it takes to make a customer happy. There may not 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 volume. As she reminds the staff, she prefers the offer, "Let me know if I tin be of assistance," or "Are you finding what you need?" "Tin I help y'all?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, information technology was dear with R.J. Julia at first scan. The dark wooden bookshelves, brass fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood floor 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, tin spend entire afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And yet, it's difficult to say who benefits more than: 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 middle of the customs," says an R.J. Julia customer. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable."

Perhaps the all-time measure out of R.J. Julia's relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a customer from the first. During a contempo visit, she picked upward 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 Event

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many modest towns, was in decline. Suburban large-box retailers were becoming the rage. "After I opened, the theater, the hardware shop, the v-and-dime, and the restaurant all closed," she says. "I thought, 'What did I only do?' " At present, Madison is a different story. Although the business organization district consists of simply 1 long block on Boston Mail Route, at that place'south an art house and an elegant Italian restaurant beyond from R.J. Julia. At that place are a variety of shops and boutiques. There'south even a Starbucks.

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

In reality, though, adding corporate discipline to the bookstore remains a challenge, specially without the financial incentives she had at her disposal at a major accounting firm. Instead, Coady offers a casual, fun environment in which booksellers can be their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative word in independent 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 1 wore for long. A newly arrived box of green R.J. Julia lanyards in the function could be next. "This is where the commonwealth thing shoots me in the pes," she says.

Coady's natural effusiveness and honey of writing — she reads about six books at a time — make her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the floor, our sales go up xx%," says store manager Meredith Warner. Religion Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Issue twice a calendar month, when Coady appears on her show to talk nigh books. Recently, equally she described Family unit History, Dani Shapiro'due south novel about a mother's attempts to save her fractured family unit, "the hair stood up on the back of my neck," says Middleton. "You 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 first contemplated changing careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would exist a alter of footstep, less demanding for her than being an executive at a large firm. "I often joke that I gave up money for fourth dimension, and now I take neither," she says. She'southward however 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-shop expanse, and cartoon up a concern programme to take the brand in new directions.

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

Sidebar: 5 Swell Reads

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

Below are five of her all-time favorite books. If these aren't enough, check 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 small German town that may or may not empathize what's going on, but in a quiet way is mimicking what's happening. You 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 similar at home, raising her kids during a dangerous time."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting past Milan Kundera

"Information technology'due south about sorrow as a manner of defining you, how you need information technology to live and function in a meaningful manner. Information technology's a philosophical book, but in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka way."

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

"The narrator is a black girl who has been abused, and the novel is near how she moves through that experience. This is i of those books that changes the way yous look at the world."

A Child'south Album of Poetry past Elizabeth Sword

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

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Visitor senior writer based in Baltimore. Learn more about R.J. Julia on the Web (world wide web.rjjulia.com).