Bookswapping Windsor Style

So Thursday arrived. Did a full day at work, shut up shop, had a sandwich, and a cup of tea to prepare myself for the evening ahead. This time I was better prepared swap-wise and took Inside The Whale by Jenny Rooney - fab book - not a problem for a swap I thought. After respite, loaded the event box (big, giant, blue and plastic) and then discovered it wouldn't fit in the boot of my little car! So, fearing for the upholstery, on the back seat it went.

Got there in plenty of time - even beat Scott! Set up, with the aid of a lovely young Irish man whose name I didn't catch - but you know who you are - thank you for carrying my event box. People started arriving - I got a drink.

Hugs from Helen Rappaport for reviewing her book. Lots of interesting non-book chat about Russia, loves, hates, teen angst poetry - all sorts of things. Helen is a delight even if she did turn her nose up at my book! She had a copy of D H Lawrence poetry, and as I couldn't remember ever reading any, I offered to swap, but she declined. Maybe I just did a bad sales job on the book.... :(

Kate Clanchy was equally delightful. She's a poet, and is convinced writing prose has changed which of her eyes is the dominant one. Her theory sounded fine to me! Her book Antigona and Me, sounded just as interesting and has now joined my Roundtooit Pile.

Question from the Question Jar were answered. Macaroons baked by the lovely Mrs Pack were eaten. Someone called Stephanie came and brought seriously delicious raspberry cupcakes.

Swapping was fun, from 'Scottish with lots of sex', to 'it's a really good book but I hated it', to 'Oh no I've changed my mind I don't want this one', lots of fun and laughter. Nothing really grabbed my interest after D H Lawrence and Helen's rejection! Nothing until Scott declared his choice of Candide by Voltaire. I was in a stage production of this at school and loved it so much I read the book. I was seventeen. I haven't read it since and thought I'd quite like to go back and see if I love it as much now, as a supposedly mature adult. We fingers trembling I held my hand up... I wasn't sure I'd handle the rejection...and offered to swap. So now I have the Voltaire - I hope you enjoy Inside the Whale, Scott.

Through out the evening Melanie Gow, author, Twitterer Extraordinaire, and founder of Beat, tweeted the proceedings. There is a podcast to come too.

Next time is on 22nd October. Authors will be Ariane Sherine, the founder of the Atheist Bus campaign and now editor of the soon-to-be-festive-bestseller The Atheist's Guide to Christmas, and Sue Cook, journalist, TV presenter and more recently a novelist.

Get your tickets here.