The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

BOOKS & AUTHORS
A Literary Lovefest at Raking Through Books

Join us for tonght's Raking Through Books, The Rake's monthly happy hour book club, at Kieran's Irish Pub. This month, local literati present their takes on love, hate, kissing, bittersweet meetings and partings, rants about family, whatever moves their hearts around Valentine's Day. Guests include authors Antay Bilgutay, Carol Bjorlie, Jill Breckenridge, Carol Connolly, John Gaterud, Cindra Halm, Phebe Hanson, Lorna Landvik, Ardie Medina, Bart Schneider, Faith Sullivan, and Katrina Vandenberg. The featured book, Classical Love Poetry, edited by Jonathan Williams (with contributions from Clive Cheesman) will be for sale at a 20-precent discount. Plus, partake in the new monthly book swap. Bring a book, take a book! Meet kindred readers! Have a beer. —Jennifer Havrish

5:30-7:30 p.m., Kieran's Irish Pub, 330 2nd Ave. S., Minneapolis; free.

Not since the Brontës bulled their way to prominence in nineteenth-century Duluth has the flyover cultural set seen a distaff literary dynasty—or, quite honestly, any sort of literary dynasty—the likes of the Erdrich sisters. By now everybody knows Louise (independent bookstore owner and author of the award-winning Love Medicine and all sorts of other critically acclaimed novels, children’s books, poetry, and short story collections); and everybody should know Heid, who for our money is a more consistently stunning poet than her more celebrated sister. The impetus for this family reunion, however, is the publication of Night Train, a debut collection of short stories by Lise Erdrich, the sister we confess to knowing almost nothing about. We do know, though, that she was a 2007 Bush Foundation fellow, and Sherman Alexie has said of her collection, “This book challenged, entertained, thrilled, and scared me.” No idea how often they actually get a chance to sit down together, but we’re guessing they’ll have plenty to talk about. —Brad Zellar

7 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.

COMEDY
Cinematic Titanic

It's coming on the 20th anniversary of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the crew is coming to us, right here, tonight, at the Acme. Join original cast-members Joel Hodgson, Josh Weinstin, and Trace Beaulieu — along with MST3k favorites Mary Jo Pehl and Frank Conniff — for an evening of "stand-up comedy, interactive hijinks, and peeks at our first DVD release: Cinematic Titanic's 'The Oozing Skull'."

8 p.m., Acme Comedy Company, Historic Itasca Building, 708 1st St. N., Minneapolis; 612-338-6393; $20, dinner & show $32.