(READING) The People of Paper, Plascencia's debut novel, is full of blistered, peeling, drooling people. And a woman made entirely of paper. And a tortoise made entirely of metal. A wife and her bed-wetting husband sleep on a mattress filled with hay and mint. Finally she says, "A wife can only take so many years of being pissed on," and leaves him. To cure his sadness, he lights himself on fire. This all happens by the middle of the first chapter. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main St, 624-6600. 7:30 pm, free.)