paper trail

Aug 22, 2011 @ 4:01:00 am

Slavoj Žižek

Book sales are falling, but comics (especially high-end collections) are doing better than ever.

Michigan-based indie publisher Dzanc Books has created a new prize for mid-career writers. The winner (to be announced after the February 1 deadline) gets a $1,000 advance and publication with Dzanc in 2013.

James Patterson is the world’s highest-paid writer, but Stephenie Meyer and Stephen King aren’t doing too badly, according to a new Forbes list.

Slavoj Zizek considers the meaning of the London riots: “The fact that the rioters have no programme . . . tells us a great deal about our ideological-political predicament and about the kind of society we inhabit, a society which celebrates choice but in which the only available alternative to enforced democratic consensus is a blind acting out.”

Slate wonders what makes slang words stick.