It's odds on that ‘Old man and the Sea' was written in a noisy coffee shop. ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls' too.

Ernest Hemingway would go to a 'pleasant, warm clean” establishment, order up a café au lait, take out a notebook and pencil and write another classic with all that hubbub and distraction going on around him.

The Christian and the scientist – café authors George Bryant and Dr Shaun Holt.

Dr Shaun Holt of Bethlehem would probably squirm at his name being uttered in the same breath as Hemingway, but there are distinct parallels.

'This is my c'office” says the doctor, academic, research scientist, producer of published papers, author and entrepreneur. ‘C'office' being his portmanteau of café and office. His favourite coffee shop is also his office. No overheads - apart from the coffee.

And from his c'office, with a dining capacity of 120, all day menus, conversation and company, Shaun has written several books. 'Six or seven,” he says. The Coffee Club in Bethlehem Town Centre is very fertile literary territory.

And while Hemingway won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 and is probably still being published, Shaun admits to having a few cartons of an unsold book sitting in his garage.

'One went bestseller,” he's quick to correct. 'With 10,000 copies.” So there.

But there are no love trysts, no Machiavellian plots, twists and turns or shootouts. None of the fanciful stuff. You wouldn't thumb through Shaun's book ‘Complementary Therapies for Cancer' on the pillow before lights out.

But then if you're confronted with your own mortality, Shaun's 'essential research-based guide on what works, what doesn't and how to tell the difference” might be a compelling read.

What about some of the great opening literary gambits – Thomas Pynchon's ‘A screaming came across the sky' or Nabokov's ‘Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins' or Dickens' ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'.

Perhaps it's unfair, but compare those gems with Shaun's excerpt: 'We all feel down from time to time and many of us will experience episodes of sadness over our lifetime” from his book ‘Depression – natural Remedies that really work'.

It's unfair considering the damage caused by depression.

Shaun draws a different sort of inspiration from the crema atop one of his two or three trim flat whites each day in his C'office. There's indisputable fact and researched reasoning – his books are more ‘50 Shades of Science'.

'I'm here every day – 9am to 11am or and back in the afternoon for the last seven years,” says Shaun.

It's here he does his best work – here amongst his public, in the milieu of the cafe, only metres from a hissing, spitting coffee machine, the crashing of plates and a clientele clamouring for caffeine.

He's written his books, established a business which may go global, marketed a couple of products and had two or three eureka moments.

'My wife's at home.”

And? 'Well, she can be a distraction,” he explains. And 100 boisterous customers in a café isn't? 'She wants other things done which aren't work-related. And there's my boy and his video games.”

So he comes to his haven, his take on a writers' retreat, his creative space.

'The noise of the café keeps me focussed, creative and efficient,” he admits. 'That's not just random opinion, of course, it's been researched. This scientist has done his homework.

The University of British Columbia conducted a study of the effectiveness of the working process depending on the level of noise, with 300 participants performing a series of tasks in a room where the noise level ranged from silence, to constant noise of a café, to very loud.

Researchers concluded having a medium level of noise complicated the processing of information, thereby promoting creativity because it stimulated abstract thinking. So there you go!

But what about the foot traffic, busybodies wanting a chat, the small talk which would interrupt the process?

'The C'office can be full of people at 10am and I don't even notice it,” says Shaun.

It seems it's rare for some to intrude in the space of a caffeine-gargling patron with an open laptop and a look of concentration. That's not science, just Shaun's observation. One endorsed by George Bryant.

George is sitting opposite Shaun in the Coffee Club at Bethlehem. He's another prolific C'office author, mainly on social issues. His latest work ‘Making a real Difference – Christian Movers and Shakers' is published on Sunday.

And he's hovering over a fresh manuscript on his laptop – heart attack victims.

The Christian and the scientist, writing books together in a coffee shop. An interesting dynamic they agree. 'But we still get on despite that,” says Shaun.

And when the day is done, he might just have his family down to the C'office for dinner. People worldwide are apparently doing it. Because it's nice and it's efficient.