Noel and Beth Hunt. Photo: Linza de Jager
Every person deserves to have his or her dream job. For a bookworm a dream job is one that features books. Lots of special books.
I fell into my dream job at Hemingways Bookshop in Hermanus. Co-owner Beth Hunt had taken a liking to me and wanted someone to handle the shop’s social media. It was winter and Beth’s flamboyance and “mango fizz” (her term for things that excite one) lit up the interior of The Boys coffee shop where we were having coffee.
Bold exterior, bold interior
A few days later I reported for duty at what has to be South Africa’s most special bookshop. In case you’ve not visited Hemingways Bookshop or read about it (which would place you on Mars or some other Gulag) the bookshop looks like this:
Hemingways Bookshop.
Its bold green and red exterior features an olde worlde mural of a little old man and a lot of books. An olde worlde charm reigns inside the shop, too. Other things that bubble to the surface are wit, intelligence, style and kindliness.
Beth and Noel Hunt have been at the steer of Hemingways Bookshop for more than 20 years and they’ve managed to keep their love of both books and life intact. And so red-headed Beth will interrupt her morning coffee and home-made crunchie to get up to feed Charlie the pigeon who keeps on wandering into the shop.
Booklover Veronica Engelbrecht has been working at Hemingways for many years.
Commandeers a singer to help her
In the meantime she thinks of all the things that have to be done on that day. Recently purchased books need to be unpacked and displayed, just so. And since Beth has the eye of a Diaghilev and the energy, all the displays of figurines have to be changed. Noel is quieter, watchful, a bit amused when Beth commandeers a young performing artist who washed up on Hermanus’ shores to help her with some books. He obeys, of course. He also breaks into song, and is cheered on. His contact details are taken, because creative people who turn up at Hemingways tend to become friends.
With author Rudie van Rensburg, who featured Hemingways in his book Judaskus.
Time spent at Hemingways Bookshop is unlike time spent elsewhere. It is a place where the great and the grand and the penniless come to gawk and talk and buy. It is possibly at heart a salon; one that just happens to feature a magnificent collection of books that are for sale.
Hemingways Bookshop, 4 Warrington Place, Harbour Road, Hermanus
Artist Carol Mangiagalli’s depiction of the shop.
