Give me a white coat, put me in an exam room, and I can diagnose the common cold with the best of them.

A few years ago, there was much whining by newspaper columnists when over-the-counter cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a decongestant, were yanked from the shelves in pharmacies.  (Pseudoephedrine is used in meth labs, and the meth cooks were buying up the cold pills.)

Personally, I never found that pseudoephedrine helped my colds anyway.

And I ask myself:  can over-the-counter medication possibly get any stronger even without pseudoephedrine? I recently took two cold/sinus pills, and was knocked out for 15 hours.

Fifteen hours is a lot of sleep.

I was cured.

Was it the sleep or the pills?

Anyway, just in time for my trip to London… which is coming up.

Being an extremely boring bibliophile, I have wondered anxiously which books I should take with me on the plane.  Will my library book set off the security alarms?   Perhaps I should take a paperback.

I will doubtless acquire new books in London.

I cannot pretend my bookish idea of a good time would suit everyone.

“Are you getting a job in a second-hand bookstore?”  my husband asked.

That was my first plan.

My second plan was to attend a lot of literary events. Literary events are to me what jumble sales are to Barbara Pym’s characters. (I grew up in Iowa City, home of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and have a high tolerance for readings, lectures, etc.)   And if I do go to any literary events, I will be sure to wear a Pymish jumper/sweater, my thickest glasses, and my walking shoes.

So, literary London?  Why not?  It will get me oriented, right?  I  probably won’t have time to attend these events, since I plan to be thoroughly touristy in an unliterary way,  but, nonetheless, I have compiled a literary calendar.  See you there.  Well, maybe.

1.  Royal Shakespeare Company:  “Two special events with the award-winning writer Hilary Mantel over the weekend of 22nd and 23rd March at the Swan Theatre”.  I can’t get the information about this to come up now–does that mean it’s sold out?–but Mantel will talk about Cromwell: her novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies have been dramatized.
http://www.rsc.org.uk/about-us/updates/hilary-mantel-events-at-rsc.aspx

2.  Oxford Literary Festival, March 22-March 30.  A week of writers, lectures, interviews, and other events. You can see Sebastian Barry, Jan Morris, Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Alexander McCall Smith, Orhan Pamuk, Peter Stothard, Margaret Drabble, Eleanor Catton, and many others.  Yes, I should probably have simply spent the week at the Festival.

3.  Daunt Books Spring Festival, Thursday 27th and Friday 28th March, 2014, at Daunt Books, 83 Marylebone High St, London W1U 4QW.  Although 10 a.m. is too early in the morning for me–what are they thinking?–some of you Virago fans might want to attend a talk on “Celebrating Virago Modern Classics” with writers
Deborah Levy, Maggie O’Farrell and Susie Boyt.

4.  Mad Man, Chris Goode’s new adaptation of Gogol’s Diary of a Madman.  A Theatre Royal Plymouth Production,
Thursday 20 March–Saturday 5 April

5.  WordFactory’s  Salon with 
Joe Dunthorne, A.S. Byatt, Will Cohu
WATERSTONE’S PICCADILLY
Saturday, 29 March 2014, 6:00PM – 8:00PM

“An unforgettable evening of story-telling from internationally renowned AS Byatt, (Possession/ The Children’s Book) and rising stars Will Cohu and Joe Dunthorne (Submarine). Enjoy a warm welcome and free glass of wine at the UK’s leading short fiction salon.”

Is that enough to keep me busy?  I hope so!