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 i of the pinnacle taxation accountants in the country. 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 daughter, she kept the books for her begetter's bakeries. "If you lot were to choice a dream person to start her own bookstore, it would be Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Organized religion Middleton. "She's so smart nigh concern."

Coady nearly proved everybody incorrect.

For the kickoff several years, R.J. Julia Contained Booksellers, located on the main drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew by leaps and bounds. 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 hubby, a quondam real-estate developer, had saved upward. It was twice what she should have invested, but she couldn't resist going all out on complimentary wine and food at volume signings, stylish 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."

As an accountant, Coady had always used her head. Just as a bookseller and volume lover, she allow her heart take over. She congenital the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business. "Now," she says, "I'thou combining caput and centre."

Thirteen years after dramatically changing 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 have closed, R.J. Julia has achieved more than than $3 million in annual sales and a modest profit. And Coady, its ever-fashionable, opinionated, and animated possessor, has made the transition from successful accountant to successful bookseller.

A Bookseller Waiting to Happen

Coady'south passion for reading and her talent for bookkeeping were inspired by her parents, who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the U.s.a. in 1948, settling in New York's Lower East Side. Although her mother had withal to understand English, 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 school, her father, a bakery, purchased the outset of 10 bakeries, chosen Em'southward, and brought her to a meeting with his accountant.

"Who'due south 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 half-dozen, juggled school, family baby-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for college. "Now my father feels I work likewise hard," she says, laughing. "He says, 'You can't ride ii horses with one ass.' I tell him, 'Daddy, this is what you raised me to practice.' "

By the 1980s, Coady had become a partner and national tax managing director at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international accounting firm. She was the first adult female selected for the job. "People tell me at present, 'Information technology must have been boring working with taxes,' " Coady says. "But I loved it." She had a 12th-floor corner office overlooking Key Park and was making about $250,000 a year. In 1988, she was featured on the encompass of Money mag, which dubbed her "the accountant's accountant."

Heady stuff, to be sure. Simply it wasn't enough to continue her there. "As much as 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 not in the way that books had always been.

Even as 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 train, anywhere. She was forever recommending favorite titles to friends. "I ran a little library out of my firm," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the all-time book you gave me.' "

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

Creating a Modernistic-Day Town Green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady'southward grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration camp in World War 2, is much more than than a store where you buy the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. It'southward a local establishment that has become interwoven with people'due south lives every bit few businesses are. "It's the centre of the community," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, manager, and producer who lives in neighboring Guilford and attends a monthly book-guild meetings at R.J. Julia. "The bookstore and the town are inseparable." Area residents feel a responsibleness to back up the independent bookstore — their bookstore — even if information technology means paying a little more at times.

From the beginning, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to exist a modern-twenty-four hours town green. "I felt people were becoming asunder from each other," she says. "We had lost a public place for conversation about things that mattered." The store hosts more than 200 events a yr, from book signings to book-club meetings to children'south-story hour on Midweek mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has fabricated Madison, an flush coastal town with ii,200 residents, a regular book-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'southward suggestion, Lee Jacobus started a classical literature volume club at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, he prepares equally though he were still teaching in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes 40 minutes a day, 3 days a week. "It'southward an enormous fourth dimension investment and, yes, I do information technology 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 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 accept read. "That's the value that we add to the book-buying experience," Coady says. "We put the right book in the correct hands." The store'due south top-selling section 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, by a bookseller's kid ("I'm 11, and I finished in exactly five days, down to the hour! In one case yous start reading it, you won't stop!" raves Hana, the manager's stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is one of nearly 35 booksellers on staff. Similar Coady, she's sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking about books all twenty-four hours. She can't imagine working at a chain, even the ane that's coming to Waterford, about 15 miles from where she lives. "At that place are too many rules," says Coopersmith. "Here, I can give a discount to a customer whenever I want to." It'due south true. Coady lets the staff practice whatsoever it takes to brand a customer happy. In that location may not be many official rules, but the staff definitely knows the kind of shop that she wants R.J. Julia to be. When it comes to sharing likes and dislikes, Coady'due south an open volume. As she reminds the staff, she prefers the offering, "Let me know if I can be of aid," or "Are you finding what you need?" "Tin I assist you?" strikes her every bit intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, it was love with R.J. Julia at first browse. The night wooden bookshelves, brass fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood flooring give the identify the ambient of a neighborhood bookstore in Europe or New York. Ferringer, the caput of the political-science section at the University of New Haven, can spend unabridged afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a month. And however, 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'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 boondocks are inseparable."

Peradventure the best mensurate of R.J. Julia'southward human relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a client from the kickoff. During a recent visit, she picked up a special order, The Sparse Woman, a lighthearted British who-washed-information technology, written past Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What's remarkable virtually her purchase is that Harrington never requested the volume. In fact, she had never even heard of it. "Suzanne ordered information technology for me without my knowing," she says.

"I knew she'd love information technology," says Coopersmith.

She was right.

The Roxanne Effect

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many small towns, was in reject. Suburban big-box retailers were becoming the rage. "Afterward I opened, the theater, the hardware shop, the five-and-dime, and the restaurant all airtight," she says. "I thought, 'What did I but do?' " At present, Madison is a different story. Although the business district consists of just ane long block on Boston Mail service Route, there's an art firm and an elegant Italian restaurant across from R.J. Julia. There are a multifariousness of shops and boutiques. There's fifty-fifty a Starbucks.

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

In reality, though, adding corporate bailiwick to the bookstore remains a challenge, especially without the fiscal incentives she had at her disposal at a major accounting firm. Instead, Coady offers a casual, fun environs 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 office could exist adjacent. "This is where the commonwealth thing shoots me in the foot," she says.

Coady'due south natural effusiveness and love of writing — she reads well-nigh vi books at a time — brand her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the floor, our sales go up twenty%," says store manager Meredith Warner. Faith Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Effect twice a month, when Coady appears on her testify to talk near books. Recently, equally she described Family History, Dani Shapiro'southward novel about a mother's 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 pes of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its possessor. When Coady commencement contemplated changing careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would be a alter 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 at present I have neither," she says. She's even so a blazon A, so it comes as no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she'due south expanding the children'south department, revamping the gift-shop expanse, and cartoon up a concern plan to take the make in new directions.

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

Sidebar: five Bang-up Reads

"Everybody has time for one discretionary thing," 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 enough, 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 by Ursula Hegi

"It's about World War 2 and the Holocaust from the perspective of a small German town that may or may not empathize what'southward going on, but in a quiet way is mimicking what'southward happening. You experience the affect of betrayal and of being co-conspirators through silence."

Honey Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams past 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 past Milan Kundera

"It's about sorrow as a way of defining you, how you demand it to alive and office in a meaningful way. It's a philosophical book, merely in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka fashion."

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

"The narrator is a black 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 look at the world."

A Child's Anthology of Verse past Elizabeth Sword

"I've been reading from this to my son since he was two, and nosotros e'er observe something that amuses us, whatsoever 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 (world wide web.rjjulia.com).