Bethany McLean

After initially turning down his offer and sending their book proposal out to other publishers in hopes of getting a higher advance, Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean—of The New York Times and Vanity Fair, respectively—have agreed to write their account of the crisis on Wall Street for Adrian Zackheim at Portfolio, the business imprint of Penguin Group USA.

Theirs is the third book on the crisis that Penguin Group USA has signed in approximately 48 hours. The first was Roger Lowenstein's Six Days That Shook the World, which Ann Godoff at Penguin Press acquired Wednesday; the second was Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail, which Viking won at auction yesterday afternoon for what several sources said was a sum in the high six figures.  read more »