If anyone could pull information technology 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 boondocks.

Of class, they believed in her. She had been one of the tiptop 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 fifty-fifty grew upward in business concern: Equally a girl, she kept the books for her father's bakeries. "If you lot 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 virtually business."

Coady nearly proved everybody wrong.

For the first several years, R.J. Julia Independent Booksellers, located on the master drag in Madison, Connecticut, grew by leaps and bounds. The im-pressive growth, nonetheless, 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 married man, a one-time real-estate developer, had saved upwardly. 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 bags, and excessive bonuses. "Instead of solving problems, I threw more than money at them," she says. "I didn't run the shop like a business concern."

As an accountant, Coady had always used her head. But as a bookseller and volume lover, she let her heart accept over. She built the virtually appealing bookstore she could imagine, while neglecting to build a sustainable business. "At present," she says, "I'm combining head and heart."

Thirteen years after dramatically changing careers, Coady, 54, has proven that she could pull it off afterward all. In the same time that nearly one-half of the contained bookstores in the land have closed, R.J. Julia has accomplished more than than $3 million in annual sales and a pocket-size turn a profit. And Coady, its ever-fashionable, opinionated, and blithe 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 United states in 1948, settling in New York's Lower Due east Side. Although her mother had yet to understand English language, she read to her children anyhow, pronouncing the words phonetically. Once Coady learned to read, she wanted to tackle every children's volume in the library in alphabetical order. When she was in middle school, her begetter, a baker, purchased the first of 10 bakeries, chosen Em'south, and brought her to a meeting with his accountant.

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

"She is," her male parent replied.

He wasn't joking. The auditor agreed to teach her, and Coady, the oldest of six, juggled schoolhouse, family infant-sitting duties and payroll books until she left for college. "Now my male parent feels I work too hard," she says, laughing. "He says, 'You tin't ride 2 horses with ane ass.' I tell him, 'Daddy, this is what you raised me to exercise.' "

By the 1980s, Coady had become a partner and national revenue enhancement director at BDO Seidman, the New Yorkffibased international accounting firm. She was the first woman selected for the job. "People tell me now, 'It must accept been slow 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 embrace of Money magazine, which dubbed her "the accountant'south accountant."

Heady stuff, to be sure. But it wasn't enough to continue her there. "As much as I enjoyed the piece of work, it wasn't enriching," Coady says. "It was in terms of dollars, but it wasn't enriching to my heart." At to the lowest degree not in the mode that books had ever been.

Even equally she climbed the corporate ladder, Coady remained an insatiable reader. She would always bear 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 little 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. Information technology was fourth dimension to make a change.

Creating a Modern-Twenty-four hour period Town Dark-green

R.J. Julia, named for Coady's grandmother, Julia, who perished in a concentration army camp in World War II, is much more than a store where you lot buy the latest Harry Potter or John Grisham. It's a local institution that has become interwoven with people's lives every bit few businesses are. "It's the heart of the community," says Norman Weissman, a retired writer, manager, 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 trivial more at times.

From the beginning, Coady wanted R.J. Julia to be a modernistic-solar day 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 year, from book signings to book-society meetings to children'southward-story hour on Wednesday mornings. By lobbying publishers and catering to visiting authors, Coady has fabricated Madison, an affluent coastal town with 2,200 residents, a regular book-bout stop 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'south suggestion, Lee Jacobus started a classical literature book social club at R.J. Julia. A professor emeritus of English at the Academy of Connecticut, he prepares as though he were still teaching in a classroom, reading, analyzing, and making notes forty minutes a day, three days a week. "Information technology's an enormous time investment and, aye, I exercise information technology for free," says Jacobus. "Simply this is an institution that should be supported. It'southward 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. Like their boss, the staff is well read, which prepares them for "mitt-selling" — that is, recommending books that they or their colleagues have read. "That's the value that we add to the volume-buying feel," Coady says. "We put the right book in the correct hands." The shop'southward top-selling section 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 child ("I'thou 11, and I finished in exactly five days, down to the hr! Once yous start reading it, you won't stop!" raves Hana, the manager's stepdaughter).

Suzanne Coopersmith is one of almost 35 booksellers on staff. Similar Coady, she's sociable, totally unreserved, and capable of talking about books all day. She tin can't imagine working at a concatenation, fifty-fifty the one that'due south coming to Waterford, most 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." Information technology's true. Coady lets the staff do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. There may not exist many official rules, merely 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 book. Equally she reminds the staff, she prefers the offer, "Let me know if I can exist of help," or "Are you finding what y'all need?" "Can I help you?" strikes her as intrusive.

For Natalie Ferringer, information technology was love with R.J. Julia at get-go browse. The dark wooden bookshelves, brass fixtures, and renditions of various writers' signatures painted on the hardwood floor requite the place the ambient of a neighborhood bookstore in Europe or New York. Ferringer, the head of the political-science section at the University of New Haven, can spend entire afternoons shopping, which translates to between $350 and $400 worth of books a calendar month. And yet, it's difficult to say who benefits more: Ferringer or the bookstore. "I know them past name," she says of the staff. "There's Nancy, Karen, Lisa, Suzanne, Meredith, Beth, Babette, Roxanne."

"It's the centre of the customs," says an R.J. Julia client. "The bookstore and the boondocks are inseparable."

Peradventure the best measure of R.J. Julia's relationship with its customers comes from Denise Harrington, an avid murder-mystery reader and a customer from the start. During a recent visit, she picked up a special order, The Thin Woman, a lighthearted British who-washed-it, written by Dorothy Cannell and originally published in 1984. What's remarkable nigh her purchase is that Harrington never requested the book. In fact, she had never even heard of it. "Suzanne ordered it 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 minor towns, was in decline. Suburban large-box retailers were condign the rage. "After I opened, the theater, the hardware store, the v-and-dime, and the restaurant all closed," she says. "I thought, 'What did I but do?' " Now, Madison is a dissimilar story. Although the business district consists of simply one long block on Boston Postal service Road, there's an art business firm and an elegant Italian restaurant beyond from R.J. Julia. There are a diversity of shops and boutiques. There'southward even a Starbucks.

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

In reality, though, calculation corporate discipline to the bookstore remains a challenge, especially without the financial incentives she had at her disposal at a major accounting firm. Instead, Coady offers a coincidental, fun environment in which booksellers tin can exist their passionate selves. They constantly remind her that the operative word in contained bookseller is independent. When Coady tried to go the staff to wearable matching R.J. Julia shirts, they declined. And then she bought R.J. Julia buttons, which no one wore for long. A newly arrived box of light-green R.J. Julia lanyards in the office could exist side by side. "This is where the democracy thing shoots me in the foot," she says.

Coady's natural effusiveness and honey of writing — she reads about vi books at a time — make her an irresistible bookseller. "When Roxanne is on the floor, our sales go upwards 20%," says store manager Meredith Warner. Faith Middleton, the radio host, experiences the Roxanne Effect twice a calendar month, when Coady appears on her show to talk almost books. Recently, as she described Family History, Dani Shapiro's novel about a female parent's attempts to salvage her fractured family, "the pilus stood upwardly on the back of my neck," says Middleton. "You lot 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 beginning contemplated irresolute careers, she imagined that running a bookstore would be a change of footstep, less demanding for her than being an executive at a big firm. "I frequently joke that I gave upwards money for fourth dimension, and now I have neither," she says. She's nonetheless a type A, so it comes as no surprise that running a successful bookstore isn't enough. Currently, she'southward expanding the children'southward department, revamping the gift-shop expanse, and cartoon upward a business concern plan to accept the brand in new directions.

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

Sidebar: 5 Bang-up Reads

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

Beneath are 5 of her all-time favorite books. If these aren't enough, check out R.J. Julia's lists of recommended books for adults (world wide web.rjjulia.com/fivefeet.htm) and kids (www.rjjulia.com/threefeet.htm).

Stones From the River past Ursula Hegi

"It's near World War II and the Holocaust from the perspective of a modest German boondocks that may or may not sympathize what'south going on, but in a quiet way is mimicking what'south happening. You experience the impact of expose and of existence co-conspirators through silence."

Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey

"A view of the Revolution from Abigail'due south vantage point, what information technology was like at dwelling house, raising her kids during a dangerous time."

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

"Information technology's about sorrow equally a way of defining you, how y'all need it to live and office in a meaningful way. It'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 you expect at the globe."

A Child's Anthology of Poetry by Elizabeth Sword

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