To Windsor for a Book Swap event organised by Scott Pack, a writer and publisher now running the Friday Project at Harper Collins, but formerly the buyer for Waterstone’s and a man with a wide reach in the world of books. He provides tea, cake and guidance.

As we file in late, Scott explains that we are to be hearing from a panel of guests, asking questions, mingling and swapping books. Apparently, this is what people did before the internet. Tonight’s Book Swap is about literature, and ‘live social networking’.

So far, so hip. But your intrepid reporter was to be left wishing for some of that blessed anonymity that the internet provides.

Co-chairing the event is glamorous, outspoken novelist Marie Phillips, author of Gods Behaving Badly. She lightens the mood with personal revelations about her crush on David Tennant and her hatred of the Harry Potter series. Marie and Scott welcome to their sofa Robert McCrum, former editor-in-chief at Faber & Faber and, more recently, literary editor for The Observer. The final guest is Jessica Ruston, author of the dreadful-sounding Luxury, set in the world of the super-rich and their hotels.

Teething problems see the book-swapping left until the implausibly late hour of 10pm and a few awkward moments where the hosts slag off the questions offered by the audience. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all is probably the mantra for aspiring hosts. Overall though, the evening has a delightful ebb and flow as the guests sink deeper and deeper into their sofa, offering memories, observations and suggestions in response to a lively audience, and taking a lead in the book-swap process.

Over the course of two hours, topics include inspiration, perspiration, log-rolling, first dates, pet hates and comic books. We learn that McCrum loathes the Hay Festival (too much like hard work?), the standard authorial process is to re-work until you get bored, and that Jessica has been traumatised as a child by featuring on the paperback cover of her mother Susan Hill’s bestselling works. We also witness a number of excellent swaps with Scott wandering into the audience à la Graham Norton to encourage people to ‘pimp’ their poetry collections, mountaineering near-misses and slush pile nonentities.

The key figure for this first night is definitely McCrum, the elder statesman of the gathering but considered and considerate, answering silly questions where he can and making sure to bring the audience in and encourage them. His best known work is a book about recovering from a stroke, My Year Off, and it’s fascinating to hear him talk about the feedback he still gets from stroke victims and his hope that he might find God in the middle of his trouble. He didn’t. Not even remotely.

This is a great format for a literary evening: tweaks would probably include more booze, and more enforced swaps. Overall though, it’s wonderful to get such an intimate insight into the inspirations of the panelists, and the thoughts of everyone in the room about the future of books and publishing. Pack and McCrum are both at the white hot edge of net technology, promoting authors through social networks, but there’s no denying the power of Tesco’s either. And in fact, there’s a refreshing openness about blockbusting books. Nothing wrong with a few sales.

However, when it comes time to interact, the wheels fall off for Spoonfed’s representative. I get so excited by finally swapping Joseph O’Neill’s triumphant Netherland (the best book I see all night, but apparently old news to this crowd) that I go a bit manic and swap three more times in quick succession. I think this means I’m winning until I see three people looking at me in a slightly hurt manner. They liked those books, but I used them as disposable chips. Mind you, they were about travel: yuck.

The crowning social disaster of the night sees me dragging my wife out of the building before I have to face up to the victim of my crime, the lovely Marie Phillips, who has the misfortune to follow me into the disabled loo. We have to leave because I can never meet her eye again. And I bet that’s never happened to anyone on the internet.

JH