Cozy as a cup of cocoa, Keillor’s new novel, Pontoon, revisits Lake Wobegon through material first auditioned in some of his radio monologues. The satirical targets are familiar, too, the moroseness of small-town Lutherans and the goofiness of New-Age-ism (one character’s a veterinary aromatherapist), and the whole has a sort of keeping-his-hand-in quality, though it’s no less hilarious for it. Never has he so playfully juggled plotlines as in the book’s farcical climax, in which plans for a wedding, a funeral, and a conference of Danish ministers collide on the lake itself one sunny afternoon. There’s more sex than usual, too. Keillor’s reading is co-sponsored by Elliott Bay Book Co.

Mon., Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m., 2007