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 boondocks.

Of course, they believed in her. She had been i of the top tax 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 upwardly in business organization: Every bit a girl, she kept the books for her father's bakeries. "If you were to pick a dream person to start her ain bookstore, it would be Roxanne," says friend and Connecticut Public Radio host Religion Middleton. "She'due south and so smart about business."

Coady most proved everybody incorrect.

For the first several years, R.J. Julia Independent Booksellers, located on the main drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew by leaps and bounds. The im-pressive growth, however, obscured a dotcomlike disability to profit. Coady says that she ignored budgets and "blew probably $250,000" of the money that she and her husband, a former real-estate developer, had saved up. It was twice what she should accept invested, simply she couldn't resist going all out on free wine and nutrient at volume signings, stylish extra-strength bags, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving problems, I threw more money at them," she says. "I didn't run the shop similar a business organisation."

Equally an accountant, Coady had ever used her head. But as a bookseller and book lover, she permit her heart take over. She built the most appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business organisation. "At present," she says, "I'thou combining head and heart."

Thirteen years after dramatically irresolute careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off afterwards all. In the aforementioned time that almost half of the independent bookstores in the state have closed, R.J. Julia has achieved more $3 one thousand thousand in almanac sales and a modest profit. And Coady, its always-stylish, 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 United states of america in 1948, settling in New York'south Lower East Side. Although her female parent had however to understand English language, she read to her children anyway, pronouncing the words phonetically. In one case 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 begetter, a baker, purchased the outset of ten bakeries, chosen Em's, and brought her to a coming together with his auditor.

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

"She is," her father replied.

He wasn't joking. The auditor agreed to teach her, and Coady, the oldest of six, juggled schoolhouse, family baby-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for higher. "At present my father feels I piece of work also difficult," she says, laughing. "He says, 'You lot can't ride two horses with one ass.' I tell him, 'Daddy, this is what you 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 tiresome working with taxes,' " Coady says. "Only I loved information technology." She had a 12th-floor corner office overlooking Key Park and was making about $250,000 a twelvemonth. In 1988, she was featured on the cover of Money magazine, which dubbed her "the auditor's accountant."

Heady stuff, to be certain. Simply it wasn't enough to proceed her there. "As much as I enjoyed the piece of work, it wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, just it wasn't enriching to my heart." At to the lowest degree not in the way that books had always been.

Even as she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an insatiable reader. She would always 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 house," she says. "People would say, 'Oh geez, that was the all-time volume y'all gave me.' "

They were telling her something. It was time to brand a alter.

Creating a Mod-Day Town Green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady's grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration camp in Globe War 2, is much more than a store where you buy the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. It's a local establishment that has become interwoven with people's lives as few businesses are. "It'southward the center of the community," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, managing 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." Area residents feel a responsibility to support the contained bookstore — their bookstore — even if it means paying a petty more than at times.

From the showtime, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to be a modern-day town dark-green. "I felt people were becoming disconnected from each other," she says. "We had lost a public identify for chat about things that mattered." The store hosts more than than 200 events a yr, from book signings to book-club meetings to children's-story hour on Wed mornings. Past lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has made Madison, an flush coastal town with 2,200 residents, a regular book-tour end between New York and Boston. The walls are lined with dozens of autographed photos of by 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 at the Academy of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were still instruction in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes forty minutes a twenty-four hour period, three days a week. "It'due south an enormous time investment and, aye, I do it for free," says Jacobus. "But this is an institution that should be supported. It'southward of import 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. Like their dominate, the staff is well read, which prepares them for "paw-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 easily." The store's top-selling section is staff recommendations, where each book is accompanied past a "shelf talker," a sheathing review from a bookseller, or in the case of the new Harry Potter, by a bookseller'due south child ("I'yard 11, and I finished in exactly five days, downwards to the hour! One time y'all start reading information technology, you won't end!" raves Hana, the director'southward stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is one of virtually 35 booksellers on staff. Like Coady, she's sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking virtually books all 24-hour interval. She tin't imagine working at a chain, fifty-fifty the one that'due south coming to Waterford, most 15 miles from where she lives. "At that place 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 do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. There may not be many official rules, just 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's an open up volume. As she reminds the staff, she prefers the offer, "Let me know if I can exist of help," or "Are you finding what you need?" "Can I assistance you?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, information technology was dear with R.J. Julia at kickoff scan. The dark wooden bookshelves, contumely 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 caput of the political-science section at the University of New Haven, tin can spend unabridged afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a calendar month. And yet, it'due south 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 customer. "The bookstore and the boondocks are inseparable."

Maybe the best mensurate of R.J. Julia's 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 Adult female, a lighthearted British who-done-it, written by Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What'south remarkable about 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 dearest it," says Coopersmith.

She was right.

The Roxanne Effect

When Coady launched R.J. Julia, Madison, like many small towns, was in decline. Suburban big-box retailers were becoming the rage. "After I opened, the theater, the hardware store, the five-and-dime, and the eating place all closed," she says. "I idea, 'What did I just do?' " Now, Madison is a different story. Although the business commune consists of merely 1 long block on Boston Post Route, there'southward an art house and an elegant Italian eating place across from R.J. Julia. There 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 like a business, with budgets, a training manual, and more-structured evaluations. By coincidence, her son Edward and the store were born in the same year. Since turning 13 this yr, 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, especially without the fiscal incentives she had at her disposal at a major bookkeeping business firm. Instead, Coady offers a casual, fun environment in which booksellers tin be their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative word in independent bookseller is independent. When Coady tried to go the staff to habiliment matching R.J. Julia shirts, they declined. So she bought R.J. Julia buttons, which no i wore for long. A newly arrived box of green R.J. Julia lanyards in the office could be side by side. "This is where the democracy matter shoots me in the foot," she says.

Coady'southward natural effusiveness and love of writing — she reads nearly half-dozen books at a fourth dimension — make her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the flooring, our sales go upwards 20%," says store manager Meredith Warner. Faith Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Event twice a month, when Coady appears on her bear witness to talk most books. Recently, as she described Family History, Dani Shapiro's novel about a mother's attempts to save her fractured family, "the hair stood upward on the dorsum of my neck," says Middleton. "You could hear a pin driblet in the studio."

That passion infuses every square pes of R.J. Julia, and every ounce of its possessor. When Coady get-go contemplated irresolute careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would exist a change of pace, less demanding for her than being an executive at a large house. "I often joke that I gave up coin for time, and now I have neither," she says. She's withal a type A, then it comes every bit no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she'south expanding the children's section, revamping the gift-store area, and drawing up a business program to accept the brand in new directions.

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

Sidebar: 5 Corking Reads

"Everybody has time for one discretionary affair," 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 plenty, cheque out R.J. Julia's lists of recommended books for adults (world wide web.rjjulia.com/fivefeet.htm) and kids (world wide web.rjjulia.com/threefeet.htm).

Stones From the River past Ursula Hegi

"It'southward most World War II and the Holocaust from the perspective of a small German language town that may or may not understand what's going on, simply in a repose manner is mimicking what's happening. Yous experience the bear on of expose and of being co-conspirators through silence."

Beloved Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey

"A view of the Revolution from Abigail's vantage betoken, what information technology was similar at domicile, raising her kids during a unsafe time."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"It's about sorrow equally a way of defining you, how you need it to alive and function in a meaningful way. It's a philosophical book, but in that Eastern European, wacky Kafka way."

The Bluest Heart 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 style you look at the globe."

A Kid's Album of Poetry by Elizabeth Sword

"I've been reading from this to my son since he was ii, and we always find something that amuses us, whatsoever mood we're in."

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