Things are hotting up this week: the Going West Festival began last weekend with the book sale and the poetry slam, but this weekend is the biggie for lit-lovers. On Friday night the weekend kicks off with gusto and some big New Zealand names are in town – Bill Manhire, Nigel Cox and Hinemoana Baker all feature.

We do however have a cancellation, and an interesting replacement. Alas, that slinking encyclopaedia of style, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, is unable to be with us on Saturday morning. I’m sure many of you, like myself, were looking forward to hearing him talk about his superb book At Home – A Century of New Zealand Design. In his place however, is a different look into a piece of NZ history.

‘Whim Wham’ was the pen-name of major NZ poet Allen Curnow. Under it, he wrote topical and entertaining verse in various NZ newspapers, starting in the Christchurch Press in 1937 and in the NZ Herald in 1951, and becoming an institution for readers all over the country.

Auckland University Professor of English Terry Sturm is writing Allen Curnow’s biography and is well placed to have selected 200 of the best Whim Wham verses from 1937-1988 which are soon to be published as a book by Random House. Covering international news from World War II to Vietnam and politics at home throughout the Muldoon and Lange eras, as well as ‘humorous renderings of our rugby obsessions and ruminations on the state of the nation's teeth’, the book will be a singular record of 50 years of NZ history.

Terry Sturm will be appearing with with Ken Porter - Ken's an actor/reader who will bring some of the choicest bits to life on stage. Should be hilarious. Got your tickets?